The keeper of the Vatican’s secrets is revealing century-old discoveries for forthcoming book Associated Press (Chuck L)
Power Outage: On the thermodynamics of history. Lewis Lapham (Anthony L)
Trouble in Paradise Literary Review (Anthony L)
Miles Davis and the Recording of a Jazz Masterpiece Esquire (Anthony L)
#COVID-19
"More than half (56%) of adults with Long COVID who were working prior to infection were unable to return to work as normal."
A stunning statistic in the state's second annual report on Long COVID: https://t.co/lzgF8HjjkU
— Ryan Warner (@cprwarner) February 28, 2024
Delighted to share our latest work on #longCOVID – sex differences in symptoms and immune signatures. Led by @SilvaJ_C @taka_takehiro @wood_jamie_1 et al. with @LeyingGuan & @PutrinoLab. We find a striking inverse correlation btw testosterone levels and symptom burden👇🏼 (1/)…
— Prof. Akiko Iwasaki (@VirusesImmunity) March 3, 2024
Climate/Environment
A ghost town: Upper Peninsula tourism reckons with warm winter mLive (ma)
If the environmental movement is arguing the U.S. should destroy its own automotive industrial base in favor of China's to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, then they will become a fringe and irrelevant group. https://t.co/f6Cm2PYKOo
— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) March 4, 2024
Bayer turns to state lobbying in battle over Roundup weedkiller Financial Times
New report sparks questions and controversy over possible causes for Iowa “cancer crisis” The New Lede
China?
1/3
There were no surprises in today's speech, but there were also no meaningful solutions. There will be a slight shift in the locus of borrowing from local governments to the central government, but nowhere near enough to achieve the growth target.https://t.co/OnOndkjBzs— Michael Pettis (@michaelxpettis) March 5, 2024
India
In 9 Charts: India’s Growing Debt Problem Has ‘Crisis-Like Symptoms’ CADTM (Micael T)
Cricket match responsible for fatal train crash in India – minister RT (Anthony L)
The Death and Privatization of Japanese National Railways (Part 2, 1982-1987) S(ubstack)-Bahn (Micael T)
Old Blighty
MSN took this story down! Since when are they in the business of protecting pols from their stupidity?
The Legacy of RuPaul’s “Drag Race” New Yorker (Userfriendly)
Haiti
Haiti violence: Gangs threaten Haiti takeover after mass jailbreak BBC
Haiti declares curfew after 4,000 inmates escape jail amid rising violence Al Jazeera (furzy)
Gaza
Flour soaked in blood: ‘Flour Massacre’ survivors tell their story Mondoweiss
Israel opts out of Cairo ceasefire talks Business Live (BC)
Nothing brings hope to Gaza like another US shipment of 2000 lb bombs to Israel https://t.co/LZL3pRkrEx pic.twitter.com/4vsljvgom1
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) March 5, 2024
These words are penned in hunger from northern Gaza. I have little energy to go on +972 (guurst)
19,000 Israeli kids physically or mentally injured since Oct. 7 Israel Today (BC). And what, pray tell, are comparable figures for children in Gaza?
Rallies Throughout Israel Against Far-Right Gov’t; Demo Against War in Kafr Kanna; Seven Arrested in Tel Aviv Communist Party of Israel (BC)
Cracks widen in Netanyahu’s government as top political rival arrives in US Breakingnews.ie (BC). So why did the White House take the remarkable step of issuing an invite? Are they so deluded as to think Gantz would be more tractable than Netanyahu? See below for which includes results of local Israel elections
Alastair Crooke: Warning Signs – “Untenable Positions” Judge Napolitano, YouTube
Illegal Israeli settlements land for sale in Canada Canada Files (Micael T)
Hezbollah detains Dutch armed group in Beirut suburb The Cradle
New Not-So-Cold War
‘Ukraine is Russia’ – Medvedev RT. Hoo boy.
If Austin talks about risk of NATO-Russia conflict, it means US has a plan for it — Lavrov TASS (guurst)
🇸🇰‼️The Slovak Prime Minister's announcement shook the world public: We are waiting for the beginning of the world apocalypse‼️
Sending EU and NATO troops to Ukraine would lead to the apocalypse, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said. 👇 pic.twitter.com/wycnsYxEKW
— Djole 🇷🇸 (@onlydjole) March 3, 2024
ON THE LEASH OF THE US STATE DEPARTMENT AND MI6: HOW WESTERN MILITARY-INTELLIGENCE STRUCTURES FINANCE AND ARM THE RUSSIAN OPPOSITION TO FOMENT CHAOS AND TERROR IN THE COUNTRY Fountadion to Battle Injustice (Micael T)
THE GOOD GERMANS ARE BLOWING SMOKE John Helmer. Includes informative parsing of the infamous leaked Bundeswehr recording.
The Bundeswehr scandal: loose ends Gilbert Doctorow (guurst)
Syraqistan
Juan Cole, How Washington’s Anti-Iranian Campaign Failed, Big Time Tom Engelhardt
Pakistan’s worst-case scenario arrives: Rigged elections and an economic crisis LeMonde (Anthony L)
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
How to Defend Yourself Against the Powerful New NSO Spyware Attacks Discovered Around the World Intercept (Dr. Kevin)
Trump
Lambert covered this decision extensively in Water Cooler yesterday, so please see his analysis. There is considerable news and commentary reverberation today. Supreme Court rules Trump cannot be kicked off any ballot NBC
🚨The Supreme Court overturns the Colorado decision removing Trump from the ballot, holding that only Congress can enforce the 14th Amendment's insurrection clause against federal candidates. https://t.co/jmlMJ1KDfB pic.twitter.com/QEKWIcChR7
— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) March 4, 2024
The Supreme Court Butchered the Disqualification Clause New Republic (furzy)
The Dems Opened the Door for Trump’s Retribution Clandestine (Chuck L)
GOP Clown Car
Senate conservatives seek to expand power post-McConnell The Hill
Democrats en deshabillé
Inside the lopsided battle to overhaul California’s mental health law Politico. Userfriendly: “Newsom is HRC minus the pant suit.”
The New Blue Divide Boston Review (Anthony L)
Zoomer Hackers Shut Down the Biggest Extortion Ring of All Maureen Tkacik, American Prospect (Anthony L). I wish Tkacik’s editors weren’t so keen about cute, obfuscatory headlines. This is about the terrible UnitedHealthcare.
Immigration
Explosive Questions You are Not Supposed to Ask about the Border Crisis Anton Chaitkin (Chuck L)
Antitrust
JetBlue and Spirit Call Off Their Merger New York Times
Apple hit with €1.8bn fine for breaking EU law over music streaming Financial Times
Proposed class action lawsuit alleges Apple monopolizing cloud storage for its devices The Hill
AI
India Reverses AI Stance, Requires Government Approval For Model Launches TechCrunch
AI is Taking Water From the Desert Atlantic
Researchers Create AI Worms That Can Spread From One System to Another Wired
The Bezzle
Homeless Man Tries to Steal Waymo Robotaxi in Los Angeles Los Angeles Times
Guillotine Watch
America’s Super-Elite Disconnect Simplicius the Thinker (Chuck L)
Class Warfare
“I worked in banking. This is how to get the wealthy to pay more tax” efinancialcareers (Micael T)
Antidote du jour (via):
And a bonus:
This is how you feed baby manatees pic.twitter.com/NTYIu2prxU
— why you should have an animal (@shouldhaveanima) March 4, 2024
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
233 comments
Comments are closed.
HERE STANDS HAMAS
(melody borrowed from Africa by Toto)
A lot of bombs landing here tonight
Killing more resisters of your endless occupation
You bomb Gaza every day and night
The death they bring escorts a slew of martyrs to salvation
You air-dropped food just yesterday
Hoping to find some peace of mind by dropping stacks of MRE’s
Now your snipers watch that food and say, ‘Hurry boy, it’s waiting there for you!’
Palestine’s become a human barbecue
So many homes you’ve plundered and their families shattered too
We live in pain under martial law
Genocide’s the crime that undoes everything you have
Your Yahweh feeds on hate and spite
And he grows restless longing for some sanguinary gluttony
His orders are to smash and smite
As sure as murder and sorrow rises from the puss of your own history
You cannot thrive with apartheid
Try and you will meet the fire that comes
Palestine’s become a human barbecue
So many homes you’ve plundered and their families shattered too
We live in pain under martial law
Genocide’s the crime that undoes everything you have
(musical interlude)
‘Hurry boy, food’s waiting there for you!’
Palestine’s become a human barbecue
So many homes you’ve plundered and their families murdered too
Here stands Hamas here stands Hezbollah
Here stands Hamas here stands Hezbollah (here stands Hamas)
Here stands Hamas here stands Hezbollah (here stands Hamas)
Here stands Hamas here stands Hezbollah
Here stands Hamas here stands Hezbollah (here stands Hamas)
Genocide’s the crime that undoes everything you have
Thank you Antifa. Great start to another long day…
“Genocide’s the crime that undoes everything you have.”
I’ve been looking for a succinct characterization of the enormity of genocide.
Thank you.
“Illegal Israeli settlements land for sale in Canada”
The land grab has started. Several days ago a bunch of ultra-Orthodox crossed into Gaza and started to construct buildings for a settlement. The authorities chased them out so then they built a building direct on the border to show that they are coming back.
Today’s howler:
Last month, a crowd vandalized and burned an empty Waymo car in San Francisco’s Chinatown, though the motive for that incident is still unclear.
YES, about as unclear as Alphabet/ Waymo’s motives I’d say…
Re Stoller
IFIFY
I̶f̶ the environmental movement i̶s̶ a̶r̶g̶u̶i̶n̶g̶ t̶h̶e̶ U̶.S̶. s̶h̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ d̶e̶s̶t̶r̶o̶y̶ i̶t̶s̶ o̶w̶n̶ a̶u̶t̶o̶m̶o̶t̶i̶v̶e̶ i̶n̶d̶u̶s̶t̶r̶i̶a̶l̶ b̶a̶s̶e̶ i̶n̶ f̶a̶v̶o̶r̶ o̶f̶ C̶h̶i̶n̶a̶’s̶ t̶o̶ r̶e̶d̶u̶c̶e̶ g̶r̶e̶e̶n̶h̶o̶u̶s̶e̶ g̶a̶s̶ e̶m̶i̶s̶s̶i̶o̶n̶s̶, t̶h̶e̶n̶ t̶h̶e̶y̶ w̶i̶l̶l̶ b̶e̶c̶o̶m̶e̶ a fringe and irrelevant group
I have a problem with Stoller’s argument, i.e., the choice is between destroying the US automotive industry, by which we mean the working class, not the capitalists, and having efficient and reasonably-priced electric automobiles and work vehicles.
I flash back to the early 1970’s, after a couple of decades of the American automobile/truck becoming larger and more gas guzzling. Customers were ‘demanding’ chrome and big tail fins and V-8 engines. Then, OPEC, and boom, people were looking for gas-efficient (and more durable) cars. German (we bought a VW Bug) and tiny Japanese car and pickup sales skyrocketed. Blame the workers and the unions? Or was it the fault of management, who could not read the tea leaves and kept designing and producing behemoths.
Producing good quality, reasonably priced, mass market electric vehicles seems to be beyond the capabilities of the current US automotive management. Perhaps because the profit margins are not large enough? Reducing ‘range anxiety’ by a nation-wide government build-out of charging stations seems to be beyond the capabilities of our politicians.
And, why blame the ‘destruction of the automotive industrial base’ on ‘environmentalists? With the compensation gains of the past year by the US auto workers, due to strong union advocacy, our leaders are undoubtedly planning the their demise. Can’t have the working class becoming too uppity.
And, why were the auto-workers (and the restaurant workers, and the nurses, and the (fill in the blank) demanding compensation increases? Because the US health care system is crap. Expensive crap. Because the cost of housing has outpaced wage increases. (And, what are the factors behind the skyrocketing housing costs and why do private equity groups now own 25% of single family homes in the US?) And, whatever happened to free/low cost public post-secondary education?
Thank you! The average new car price in US is over $46,000 (Seems very hard to determine whether or not ‘average’ is a simpleton misnomer for ‘median’) With American buyers more than willing to go years long on loans for things they don’t really need with money they don’t have, why would a tariff and regulation fully federally protected industry bother producing utilitarian transportation appliances for the unwashed masses? We’ll never have any of the utilitarian options available in Europe or Asia.
they did under Gatt. see the plymouth and dodge cars with slant sixes, like the VALIANT. used to see them getting 25-30 M.p.g..
i had a 1974 dart, 318 cubic inch v-8, four on the floor, used to average 27 m.p.g.
A.M.C. hornet, six cylinder, four speed, got 25-30 m.p.g. and i was never a light foot.
Every bit of marketing has hitched the size and noise to masculinity and virility, from what i can tell. In extreme examples you get such outbursts as the rolling coal antics, where a F150 is set up to pretend it is a semi by adding vertical exhaust and mixing the fuel rich.
More and more i am convinced that the 60s-70s broke USA, and perhaps its fan(atic)s in Europe, and it has never quite recovered. Around that time, the western was modernized to incorporate motor vehicles. And the trucker inherited the aura of the cowboy.
But just as all this was getting under way, OPEC happened as you way. And all of a sudden what was supposed to be a symbol of freedom became a massive economic sinkhole.
I have a problem with Stoller’s argument, i.e., the choice is between destroying the US automotive industry, by which we mean the working class, not the capitalists, and having efficient and reasonably-priced electric automobiles and work vehicles….
[ Just as there is no problem with German or Japanese or Korean vehicles being made in America, so too could and would Chinese cars be made in America. The argument here is expressly against Chinese vehicles, from a voice that is continually hostile to China. The specific hostility to China is pronounced and growing and already intimidating. ]
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=KPT0
January 30, 2018
Consumer Price Indexes for New and Used cars & trucks, 2017-2024
(Indexed to 2017)
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=uek2
January 30, 2018
Light Weight Vehicle Sales, 2017-2024
(Indexed to 2017)
Lloyd Austin/NATO/Ukraine
This is not my comment but one at another site that is succinct.
“Defense Sect Lloyd Austin is all for putting NATO troops on the ground in Ukraine because Russia would not dare to attack them. On the other hand if we don’t support Ukraine Russia will attack NATO countries. Did anyone in Congress ask him to clarify that contradiction, of course not.”
Nor I’m sure did anyone ask, “And if you’re so sure that Russia wouldn’t dare to attack NATO troops, why didn’t you push to introduce them years ago ? Without even having to fight they’d make Ukraine unbeatable if they really were effective human shields for Ukrainian military infrastructure”.
Lloyd fumbles the baton toss from Cookies.
Russia would have no choice but to attack any NATO formations – after a warning that is. If they do not, then NATO troops will swarm throughout the Ukraine setting themselves up as tripwires next to high-value Ukrainian targets. Can you imagine a US or UK brigade dashing into Odessa and daring the Russians to do anything about it? As for Defense Sect Lloyd Austin, he is as useless as General Mark Milley was.
Reports from 404 action seem to make clear that Russian forces are quite pleased to blow the crap out of NATO people there. Nodes and concentrations, meet Zirkon or FAB.
And how about the AZOV scum in Mariupol’s Azovstal plant, apparently killing and incinerating NATO officers there, to avoid the embarrassment of Russia finding lots of NATO dirtbags helping the Nazi troops “resist the Slavic hordes?”
F34k around, find out.
(Had dinner with old friends of the classical progressive persuasion a couple of days ago. They were totally aghast when in response to some remark one of them made about evil dastardly Putin, I said I was rooting for Russia and started offering an assortment of reasons why, from among the real evil coming from “our side.” Talk about stink eyed silence in response. CNNMSDNC Syndrome is strong in these ones. Sad. I think they might have generously cut me some slack since they are aware I am a former volunteer in the Imperial Army…)
I seem to recall a period last year when we are speculating if the 101st was being readied for just such a dash out of Romania, as news broke about them being deployed there.
If 40% of you budget is for war with Russia….. You sell war!
Since NATO moved east a large number of facilities and run ways have been “improved” and the plans I used to exercise to deploy somewhere in a NATO country for the Soviet war, have moved far to the east!
The image of NATO troops in Ukraine is same as the school yard bully and the chip on his should…..
A blind school yard bully talking trash to a grizzly bear he thinks is mute with terror.
If 40% of your budget is for war with Russia….. You sell war!
Since NATO moved east a large number of facilities and runways have been “improved” and the plans I used to exercise to deploy somewhere in a NATO country for the Soviet war; have moved far to the east!
The image of NATO troops in Ukraine is the same as the school yard bully and the chip on his should…..
[ An especially important comment, when America is now spending well over $1 trillion yearly and rising on the military.
NATO was pushed closer and closer to Russia. Arms treaties with Russia began to be cancelled by President Bush. Georgia, with a president from Tufts University, under cover of an Olympics opening night, launched a completely unprovoked attack on Russian peacekeepers in Ossetia. Bush began pushing for missiles in Poland. Obama actually placed missiles in Poland… ]
no, it was bill clinton that broke the promise, and started nato eastward.
If 40% of your budget is for war with Russia….. You sell war!
Since NATO moved east a large number of facilities and runways have been “improved” and the plans I used to exercise to deploy somewhere in a NATO country for the Soviet war; have moved far to the east!
[ Darn, this is a terrific comment. Remember though that this administration was shockingly antagonistic in foreign affairs from the beginning. Within mere days of beginning, the administration was already boycotting the Winter Olympics in Beijing, which China had spent years preparing for. There would be no restoring the nuclear treaty with Iran, even though Obama had negotiated the treaty and Iran had been observant… ]
A major Biden failure was the failure to re-instate the JCPOA agreement with Iran as-was and without modifications or demanding new conditions.
“Defense Sect Lloyd Austin is all for putting NATO troops on the ground in Ukraine because Russia would not dare to attack them. On the other hand if we don’t support Ukraine Russia will attack NATO countries. Did anyone in Congress ask him to clarify that contradiction, of course not.”
Because nobody in power wants Austin to clarify that contradiction. Similarly, we hear on a daily basis that Russia is collapsing, but at the same time, Russia is on the cusp of overrunning Europe.
They want the war, there is no higher priority for Biden and his Administration, and they aren’t worried about consistency or anything else, as long as they get what they want.
I guess by NATO he means USMC, as in tripwire bases.
In effect he is arguing for another Lusitania or Pearl Harbor, engineering a incident that will galvanize the US people into an all out war against Russia.
I’d offer that just as the US/NATO was originally happy for the Ukrainians to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian, the US is now angling to let NATO fight Russia to the last European with the US’s contribution being largely to provide the bullets. Then, when the dust settles, the US will be able to move into the resulting wasteland to pick up the pieces, with lots of lucrative rebuilding.
So basically the world wars yet again, where others did all the fighting while USA took all the credit (in multiple senses).
The article on the super elite disconnect…for those on a shortened timeline as there is much to unpack..Condense it to the simplicity of the Matrix, where Neo is offered two options.
Take the blue pill, proles and enjoy your miserable life.
One thing the article doesn’t touch on, and probably should, is the likelihood that these “super-elites” are all compromised in some way, shape, or form so that they can be controlled. By whom and to what ends are unclear, but the few revelations we’ve been permitted from the Epstein files clearly indicate widespread embarrassing behavior on the part of a lot of folks who travel in these rarified circles.
The article does offer a way out. What I like to call pulling a Fountainhead. Just walk away.
A good example would be a recent visit to Fuzzy’s Tacos. Loved them back in the day in Fort Worth, and they were a regular indulgence. This most recent visit I just got a private equity vibe, and upon further research my hunch proved correct. What I loved was gone and will likely never return. So neither will I to Fuzzy’s Tacos.
I used to donate blood on the regular. I’m AB+, and my veins have been described as nurse porn they’re so big. But my blood was fueling a country club lifestyle for the Carter Bloodcare bigwigs. I don’t get to live a country club lifestyle; why should my blood provide that for others? So I stopped donating. I’m happy to donate at my local hospital, should they provide that option.
I’ve bumped up against the world of the elites during my adventures and time in the financial world. Twenty years of complex financial analysis that in the end was just enabling the pillaging and looting of our economy by the financial industry, and I decided I would never work in that industry again. Now I’m enjoying opening successful retail stores in new markets for a mid-sized Midwest company, with my next challenge being a flagship store in Chattanooga. At least now I feel like I’m helping in the creation of value for the economy, and it’s a direct exercise in the microeconomics that I used to analyze at the macro level back in the day.
I used to fly all the time. Loved it. But more than a decade ago I had three flights in a row where my genitals were fondled by a man. That’s a place I only let women go. If that’s a prerequisite for flying, I’ll pass thank you. So I stopped flying and started driving everywhere. Which served as a stark reminder of the wondrous beauty of our country and how precious it is.
You don’t have to take the blue pill. It is possible to forge new paths, and the collective results of our individual choices can change things. The hardest part is insisting on agency in one’s own life and choices, with all of the responsibilities and consequences appurtenant thereto.
Thanks for the detailed response, and best of luck there in Chattanooga. I have read various good things about that area, including all manner of outdoor fun things to do. This would make for an interesting topic and a thread during a WC open thread kinda day…
I work with a group of PMC software people in San Francisco and the Silicon Valley. Few of them qualify as “super elite” according to the article, but virtually all of them have the same attitudes. Rasmussen is shocked that 35% of the elites would cheat so their political candidate would win. In my experience 90% would cheat “for a good cause” like that. Only about 10% of my coworkers advocate directly for killing their political opponents, but they do so with a worrisome seriousness.
I don’t think knocking out a few institutions is going to change anything. The alignment is too entrenched.
Start liking it, as it only will grow worse.
As politics increasingly resembles a zero-sum winner-takes-all no-holds-barred game, sociopaths inevitably win, as those with more scruples are forced out.
Absolutely. The Pakistan model of political succession is where we’re heading. In the US, the “choosers” won’t be the military but the oligarchs, who will become more public in their actions as it becomes clear that they can now act with utter impunity.
The US is well on its way to becoming a glorified Brasil, although that country features better beaches, more attractive females, and a less hyperbelligerent foreign policy.
We’re already there.
Brazil the movie not the country
On a zoom call that included some PMC and senior academics, one of the latter volunteered that he would kill someone if he thought that person posed a threat to his family. Another replied that he was relieved at the distance afforded by the call, instead of meeting in person.
Super-elite or just self-justifying, relativistic and predatory? There are more of them than you’d imagine.
General Sherman noted that the most troublesome element in the Confederacy were the lower reaches of the aristocracy, so to speak. The lawyers-about-town, the smaller plantation holders, etc., because they would die or kill somebody rather than get a job where they actually had to work like commoners.
>>>because they would die or kill somebody rather than get a job where they actually had to work like commoners.
It is an ego thing. About twenty years ago I got a mini rant from my Dad about how some people refused jobs from a local government program in Los Angeles, offering full benefits and IIRC $15 because it was manual labor. They were of the age and health to do it, but how demeaning. s/
I would have described him as New Deal liberal and leftist, but he came from a time where you worked if possible, the kind of working being very unimportant. Our Elites don’t do commoner’s work, even if it is an honest office job in some nothing company or be a teacher in some no name school because it is not prestigious.
The article makes some valid points, but their criteria do not describe the “super elite.” Someone making $150k per year living in a city with a graduate degree has little to no influence over society in itself. It’s not a useful set of criteria. This article would’ve made a stronger argument if it focused on the people who truly influence policymakers through campaign contributions, junket arrangements, and illegal forms bribery. These are people who are making well over $150k per year, and their family wealth is a significant consideration (e.g., $50 million+ in family wealth) as to how they have and wield influence.
And also through interlocked spiderwebs of think tanks and spin mills.
When it comes to Rasmussen’s report, it’s clear that the ‘super elite’ serve to become pillars of influence-making in society, acting as the enforcement guardrails to further manage and regulate the interests of the most exclusive managerial class, tied to the old banking families. In short: it’s a well-oiled, highly-selective pipeline which continually funnels the “right people”—ambitious, but malleable and servile to globalist interests—to the top.
Rasmussen’s survey reveals just how out of touch they are with regular society. Given that their milieu remains their own closeted cohort, these people never truly intermingle nor experience the cares or frustrations of the average worker in the street. They exist solely in a parallel simulated reality, which is reinforced for them on a daily basis through the confirmation bias generating engines of leftist social media, and liberal-controlled-and-dominated big tech corporations, which filter society for them like a pair of AR glasses.
Interesting that those who think they are responsible for “managing reality” are themselves living in a simulation. It would explain why they don’t grok how much they are failing.
Today’s example: According to Reuters, French President Macron called on allies to step up and “not be cowards” in Ukraine. If he were competent, he would have worked on ensuring the EU could manufacture and deliver enough ammunition to Ukraine this year. But no, let’s go fight Russia without, because “We must act according to history and the courage it requires”. It’s insanity.
It is all about symbolism to them, like some new age Wicca where belief makes reality. Why they are all so preoccupied with how they are addressed etc, because it assuage the idea that they can make their own reality.
The Cossacks work for the Czar, and the ” super-elites” work for the Upper Class and the Overclass. This article made a couple of derisory admissions of that fact, but mostly tried to divert discontent strictly on the designated scapegoat “super-elites” and away from their employers and owners.
Put the spotlight onto the “super-elites” in order to keep the cameras off the Real One Per Cent, the Rich and the Super Rich.
‘Haiti violence: Gangs threaten Haiti takeover after mass jailbreak”
Things are getting dire there. They have had to enforce a curfew and some of these gangs tried to seize the main airport until soldiers and police fought them off. Even Washington is not game to send US troops to this island and last I heard, they were trying to outsource this work to Kenyan police. But how did things get so bad and so dangerous on this Island? Well, about twenty years ago-
https://thegrayzone.com/2024/03/01/secret-cable-cia-haiti-coup/
And two years before then, there was another spectacular jailbreak whose prisoners got put to use.
Thanks, Rev. This is very illuminating. Imagine the nerve of the Haitian government (/s) wanting back the $21 billion they paid to France since 1825 for ‘reparations’ for their lost property, which no doubt included the lost value of former slaves.
Haiti violence…
https://www.cepr.net/us-political-intervention-in-haiti-has-caused-instability-and-aid-efforts-have-largely-failed/
November 6, 2015
US Political Intervention in Haiti Has Caused Instability and Aid Efforts Have Largely Failed
By Mark Weisbrot
When a devastating earthquake struck Haiti in January 2010, killing more than 200,000 people, former President Bill Clinton said that the reconstruction would provide an opportunity to “build back better.” Some $9.6 billion was pledged by the international community, including the US government. But nearly six years later, although about $7.6 billion has been disbursed, there is not much to show for it.
Hundreds of thousands of Haitians displaced by the earthquake remain without adequate shelter. USAID, the US State Department’s development agency, pledged to build 15,000 homes but has so far only delivered 900. Most US taxpayers’ money, it seems, didn’t get outside of the Beltway. Of USAID contracts, for example, more than 50 percent of payments went to contractors in the Washington, D.C. area, while only 1 percent went directly to Haitian companies or organizations. Everyone worries about money being potentially lost to corruption in the Haitian government, and so just a small fraction of the billions pledged went to desperately needed budget support. But the large-scale corruption, fed by lack of accountability, is much closer to home.
Haiti needs a government that can collect taxes, especially from the rich elite and companies that can pay them, and provide necessary services. This should have been the target of “building back better,” rather than foreign contractors. But the US government has never shown much interest in building a democratic, legitimate government in Haiti; quite the opposite in fact. In 1991, Haiti’s first democratically elected president, Jean Bertrand Aristide, was overthrown in a military coup. It was later determined that leaders of the coup had been paid by the US Central Intelligence Agency. In 2004, Aristide was deposed again through a multi-year effort by Washington, who took him out of the country and into forced exile for seven years.
In 2011, Washington intervened once again by arranging for the Organization of American States (OAS) to reverse the first round results of Haiti’s presidential elections….
The Clintons have become centi-millionaires since leaving the White House, and the first paragraph of your excerpt provides an inkling why…
Never let a
crisislucrative grifting opportunity go to waste.Those irrepressible Clintons, always spreading joy and goodwill, minus a rake-off of course.
One eye on the bank balance and another on the statute of limitations clock.
/:
I’m seriously thinking of putting my pied-à-terre in Port-au-Prince on the market.
Someone impersonating me had a comment get though from the outside, making utterly false claims about my health. This troll has made this sort of comment regularly but it is the first time it had gotten through.
Anyone have success buying betadine nasal spray in the states? I’ve had to order it from overseas in the past
Listed on Amazon at present.
Yes, it’s listed on Amazon, however I have ordered it three times on Amazon.
It is never delivered. It only says product is not available at this time.
Received it from Amazon this week. Delivered overnight. Viraldine brand
Gaggh! Sorry to hear this, Yves. Take a break and Get well soon!
I am fine and have never had Covid.
The comment was a fabrication. The troll every 6 weeks puts up a post starting witih “Yves here” ‘which I NEVER use in comments. He falsely claims that I was vaxxed a zillion times and now have Covid. It’s the same formula. This is the first time his comment got through.
Oh no… best wishes, hope you are in a good hospital.
See above. The long comment was an impersonation. I am fine and have never had Covid.
I belive you had said you were vaccine injured in an earlier post…is that correct?
If so, how did you treat that injury?
It can’t be treated. It’s one of the menstrual side effects. But it has persisted!
Holy cow! I’ve thought of you as one of the most careful persons that I know of when it comes to masking etc. I now feel very paranoid. I had become less nervous about going into a store or bank as I only go places I have to go to do business or get food. I do not go any where. I wear an N95 always.
All my best regards! Get well soon.
I do not and have never had Covid. See above.
The earlier comment was a fabrication that somehow got through. The guy tries the same stunt every month or so but it normally gets caught in moderation.
Serious reading comprehension problem?
Well apparently Biden’s contacts won’t be tested for Covid anymore? Nor those for his wife, the VP nor her husband.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/mar/4/white-house-lifting-its-covid-19-testing-rule-for-/
You have to imagine–if it is true–that Biden himself made the decision in his normal obdurate way?
And Fauci is out and about wearing an N95 headstrap respirator?!
https://twitter.com/AWangMPH/status/1764874472908038569
Please make it stop, my head hurts!!
Maybe not Biden…Biden has had contact with Bill Clinton in recent days. For Hillary to be nominated, the have to get rid of Biden. Covid presents a solution.
“And Fauci is out and about wearing an N95 headstrap respirator?!”
Did he get COVID again?
In the spirit of keeping us all safe, perhaps the most important (and hardest) bit of Covid care is radical resting? I don’t think there are studies, but a lot of individual experience and anecdotal advice.
https://twitter.com/search?q=rest%20for%20covid&src=typed_query
Since you are in Thailand you should try get access to their nasal vaccine.
Vaill CoviTRAP Anti-CoV Nasal Spray
It’s not a vaccine, it’s a 6 hour prophylactic of sorts.
And it’s not sold any more. I did buy it when it was available.
Too bad I thought it looked promising. Good to hear that you are well. I still use the Fend nasal spray which came out in the first year of the pandemic. They no longer say anything about Covid on their site but I have avoided infection so far.
Get well soon. I hope I won’t need the list, but you never know.
I am not sick. Originally comment was a fabrication.
WIshing you all the best, Yves.
So sorry…
Yves, I am so sorry to hear this. You have done so much to help others in these dark times.
I appreciate the sympathy but I am fine, this was a troll playing the readers with the story that I was a zillion times vaxed but got Covid.
Actually, glad to hear it, troll and all. So much better than if you really had gotten it. Now hope you get the troll instead!
What is the saying?
Thank you NC for all you have done regarding COVID. I am grateful for and have used many of your recommendations. I just am recovering from my first infection and it was relatively mild. I’m 77 yo BTW. I attribute this to the info from NC.
You are the best medicine!
Headed for tip jar next.
Thanks for this posting.
If you don’t mind my asking, what combination do you use to help prevent and/or prepare yourself for Covid?
So sorry you were trolled. Who would do a thing like that? But glad to know you did not have covid.
Coincidentally, a friend recently had covid for the first time and I was completely taken in by the troll’s post and checked the list of the supposed recommendations against what my friend was taking. But no harm was done–I just asked “are you taking Ten Mushrooms?” and my friend said “no, I am taking a different mushroom preparation.”
Very relieved to hear this, though the successful trolling combined with the post on Google censorship today is disturbing. We take you and NC for granted way too easily. Please take care.
The hoaxer mentioned remdisivir, iirc that has not been used for a long time now, certainly not with paxlovid.
While you have been quite active here….
wow, that’s worrisome. Glad to know you are okay, as I too read those comments and assumed you’d been ill.
I’ll admit that some of the recommendations seemed very odd and out of character! :/ Dang!
I hesitated at “Yves here,” and again at “vaxxed 5 times and Lambert 9,” was alarmed but still mightily puzzled at “in hospital,” and really raising my eyebrows by the time I got to “remdesivir.” But my faith in the impeccable moderators was so firm that I didn’t draw the conclusion that it might be fake. Clearly, I wasn’t alone.
We trust you, Yves, and as a bunch of chronic questioners and skeptics, we trust this site.
I saw the original post yesterday and I immediately thought that’s not what I would expect Yves to write. Had she really gotten Covid, I think we would have gotten a proper article, not just a comment with recommendations.
>The keeper of the Vatican’s secrets is revealing century-old discoveries
Pity the article doesn’t make mention of Pius X and rather moves right to Pius the XII and mentions, in passing, Pius XI. With Gaza on my mind I’d rather an article on Pius the X.
( Herzel seems obsessed with not kissing the pope’s hand)
THEODOR HERZL: Audience with Pope Pius X (1904)
We cannot give approval to this movement. We cannot prevent the Jews from going to Jerusalem—but we could never sanction it. The soil of Jerusalem, if it was not always sacred, has been sanctified by the life of Jesus Christ. As the head of the Church I cannot tell you anything different. The Jews have not recognized our Lord, therefore we cannot recognize the Jewish people
https://ccjr.us/dialogika-resources/primary-texts-from-the-history-of-the-relationship/herzl1904
For edification and fun, send this quote to your favorite National Review Ultra Catholic Neocon.
Watch them twist themselves into knots trying to square Papal Infallibility with Unconditional Support For Israel.
Axtually, the game can be played with any kind of human with more than one ideological absolute. Returning to TradCatholics, we can give them “Papal Infalliblity” and “Pope Francis”.
Papal infallibility is a technical term referring to promulgation of certain doctrinal matters. It was last invoked in 1950 (with any surety) according to this Wikipedia treatment:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_infallibility
The pope speaking on issues like foreign policy isn’t covered by infallibility. Anyway, the Vatican’s secretary of state is there to do that (again, fallibly).
It isn’t as if the pope saying, “I’ll have the pizza with mortadella and Sicilian pistachios,” is infallible, although pizza with mortadella and Sicilian pistachios is undeniably good.
I am well aware of what Papal Infallibility is and isn’t, although this, strictly speaking isn’t a “foreign policy issue”.
Speaking of “ideological absolutes” I found this very curious
Vatican Issues Silver Coin Featuring Vaccination Motif
https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news/vatican-issues-vaccination-coin/
Yves- OMG! Sending my thoughts to get well!
She’s not sick, it was a troll!
>‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 149: Palestinian children die of malnutrition as Israel blocks aid into Gaza
I don’t like this headline, it should simply read, “Israel continues Genocide; enters new phase, starving Palestinian children, women, and other groups.”
Footage has already emerged of children starved to the point that that they are starting to look like skeletons. Next time the west starts to go on about the “genocide” among China’s Uyghur population – of which there is no evidence – the countries of the Global Majority will throw the genocide in Gaza in their faces, especially as it is the west that is continuing to send military equipment to Israel to continue this slaughter. The standing of Western morals & values is now lower than whale s*** for most of the world.
The west failed to notice that this year they had a Xinjiang performance as one of the highlighted performances for the Spring Festival Gala broadcasted to the whole country during Chinese New Year. The Chinese celebrate Xinjiang culture. Would the Israelis ever do such a thing for the Palestinians?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJgbSECQWrw
“The West failed to notice that this year they had a Xinjiang performance as one of the highlighted performances for the Spring Festival Gala broadcasted to the whole country during Chinese New Year. The Chinese celebrate Xinjiang culture…”
https://english.news.cn/20240218/7d210f67031a45ac95e672e6a244b0a9/c.html
February 18, 2024
China’s Xinjiang sees tourism boom during Spring Festival
URUMQI — China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region experienced a tourism boom during the Spring Festival holiday this year.
During the eight-day holiday that just ended on Saturday, the region received about 7.22 million tourists and raked in nearly 7.4 billion yuan in tourism revenue, according to the regional culture and tourism department…
Hell, if China were to bait 200 starving dogs with food in order to kill them, there would be a worldwide outcry, led by the Biden Administration.
But since it’s Israel baiting starving Palestinians, we hear only about how “Israel Has The Right To Defend Itself!”
“Israel continues Genocide; enters new phase, starving Palestinian children, women, and other groups.”
Yes, this is devastatingly precise and America’s administration has directly implicated the country.
Re: Anti-trust
With the collapse of the JetBlue-Spirit merger due to it being blocked in the 1st Circuit by Lina Khan’s well-pled argument that it violated the Clayton Act, it’s time for her to turn her sights on the CapitalOne-Discover proposed merger:
Lina walks warily down the street
With her brim pulled way down low
Ain’t no sound but the sound of her feet!
The lawsuit’s ready to go
Are you ready?
Are you ready for this?
Are you standing on the edge of your seat?
Out of the briefcase the motions rip
To robber barons defeat
Another one bites the dust!
Another one bites the dust!
And another ones gone, another ones gone, another one bites the dust
Hey! They’re gonna get you too, another one bites the dust
Well done, and such a great song…We need less airline competition? Goodness. I’m sure a talking head like, say a Jim Cramer ( easiest example) will belittle such efforts to control such things. “Monopoly is good!” \sarc
Oh, believe me, the wailing and gnashing of teeth in bubble-land is epic.
Jet Blue tried to make the argument that the merger would actually enhance competition, because by creating a fourth, larger airline they would be better able to compete with the big three, Delta, American, and United in the majority of markets.
The Judge did not buy it. He looked at the markets more narrowly in terms of the fliers who rely on Spirits’ ultra-low fares being shut out and unable to afford the higher fares after the merger. Jet Blue would certainly have eliminated Spirit’s no-frills (and some would say, no service) model in favor of a higher cost “premium” type of flier who can afford to pay extra for things like assigned seats, quicker boarding times, and better overall experience.
The pandemic re-arranged the airlines’ pecking order – Delta was the big winner as they offer the best of a bad lot in terms of customer service. Delta and to a lesser extent United and American capitalized on the trend of wealthier customers being able and willing to pay extra for things that used to be considered a given, such as assigned seating, not getting stuck in the middle seat, and free checked bags.
The low-cost carriers Frontier and Spirit struggled, as the expected cost-conscious consumer has been replaced by the Wall St. leech-bucks enhanced consumer, bank account full of corporate welfare goodies.
>Power Outage: On the thermodynamics of history. Lewis Lapham (Anthony L)
The first law of thermodynamics states that energy cannot be created or destroyed. It can only change forms…As was understood two thousand years ago by the Roman poet Lucretius, the laws of thermodynamics are the nature of things. Everything that exists—animal, vegetable, and mineral, man and woman, church and state, fish and fowl, mammal and microbe, cruise missile and paper hat—is composed of “atoms tiny and readily / Moving… The elementary particles of matter—“the seeds of things”—Lucretius knew to be eternal and indestructible, ceaselessly colliding and combining in an inexhaustible variety of life-forms
I don’t know if the “first law of thermodynamics” is still true since the discovery of radium. According to Gustave LeBon, in his “Evolution of Matter.” This is not the case.
“Gods and dogmas do not perish in a day. To try to prove that the atoms of all bodies, which were deemed eternal, are not so, gave a shock to all received opinions.” [pg3]
https://archive.org/details/evolutionmatter00legggoog
“Rising sea levels on the coasts of California and Japan;”
How much have sea levels increased there? Our family has lived next to the Pacific for over four generations and have not noticed any rise. There are places where landfill is sinking into the former marshes upon which it was dumped, but on solid rock, Nope.
Or, is that speculative and future oriented?
The discovery of radium did not invalidate the first law.
Radiation=energy=matter.
Meh, i found their use of the second law as a jumping off point into hope springs eternal philosophizing more annoying.
As expected, Gaza ceasefire talks collapsed:
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/gaza-ceasefire-talks-end-with-no-breakthrough-as-ramadan-deadline-looms/ar-BB1jm1dw
Mission accomplished, Bibi!
Unless Biden does a 540, Netanyahu knows Trump is going to be President in less than 11 months, so at this point Netanyahu has nothing to gain from a ceasefire. If he can hold out, he might get a president willing to fight Hezbollah for him. Biden won’t put pressure on Netanyahu (Joe solicits advice from Larry Summers) without panicking. Biden seems convinced this is a good course of action, and he’s the village idiot of Washington, DC.
The international situation for Israel is baked in at this point. Unless the US pulls support, Netanyahu sees the end of a conflict as the resumption of his legal troubles.
I actually think it’s worse than that, though you’re on point about Bibi just waiting for Trumps triumphant return.
Bibi knows that AIPAC owns DC lock, stock, and barrel. It just doesn’t matter who is President.
Look at the pathetic spectacle AIPAC made of Biden. The so-called most powerful man on the world cannot even get a 6-week cease fire. He sent out his ace Kamala and even she could not get ‘er done.
Joe claimed he’d have “muh ceasefire” by yesterday and he now has more egg on his face. He’s going to see more protest votes against him tonight in the Super Tuesday primaries which will be detrimental to his re-election campaign.
Basically Israel calls all the shots and Joe along with any other politician with the possible exception of Rashida Tlaib are all their hidebound stooges, to borrow a phrase from Simplicius.
Joe doesn’t want a ceasefire. He wants a win. Hamas has been unwavering with their conditions: 1. Permanent ceasefire. 2. Full exchange of hostages. All for all. They’re ready to die on this hill, and Biden isn’t.
Biden and Bibi keep trying to insert “The eradication of Hamas” into this as a rider, as though they are in a bargaining position to demand their opponents commit suicide.
Al-Qassam and others still have fighting strength, and Lebanon and Yemen are showing no signs of weakness. None of them are dumb enough to drop out and leave the other key players hanging. Meanwhile, Israel’s economy is tanking, and they can scarcely afford to mobilize reserves.
If Netanyahu is confident that he will outlast Biden, he shouldn’t be.
Genocide Joe doesn’t want a cease fire. Nor do nay of the Arab countries, India, and others. I’m really sickened by this. Iran and the Houthis are the only one who care to help the Gazans and the Lebanese. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, UAE and a whole lot of islamic countries don’t even care to help. Pox on all their houses!
“Biden does a 540″…is that Linda Blair territory…you know like in the Exorcist….then again the powers that be in AIPAC will get whatever they lobby and desire..
Village idiots seem pretty common in DC lately.
I suspect that Netanyahu already has a president willing to go to war with Hezbollah for him.
For that matter, Biden is already getting a shellacking in the polls. He has nothing to lose by reversing course.
Why won’t anyone consider that Israel is blackmailing him? Or strong arming him? It’s unreal that people who suggest that Putin was blackmailing Trump would then just give Biden, being blatantly against the interest of humanity and his voters, a pass.
I don’t believe for one minute he has “values” and has always stuck by them. It’s much more simple if there is a picture of Hunter with his clothes ON that yahoo keeps pulling out and threatening him with.
Why won’t anyone consider this? Biden’s motivation is never looked at. Why?
If Biden would not be willing to have America fight Hezbollah directly whereas Trump would, then is that a difference between them which would be important enough to influence our choice of vote?
Along with $600 apiece, Decrepit Joe owes us the ceasefire he promised “by the end of last week/ weekend/sometime soon.”
Radium is unstable and basically becomes lead, helium (?), and heat and light. Radium demonstrated atoms which have the properties of elements aren’t immutable. Protons and neutrons were discovered later.
Has Nuland resigned?
Yep. She is stepping down in the next few weeks as she has no intention of being there when the Ukraine collapses. That will be up to her replacement to deal with. By then she will be safely hidden in some well paying think tank job where she can continue to spread her malevolence-
https://www.state.gov/on-the-retirement-of-under-secretary-of-state-for-political-affairs-victoria-nuland/
Or Biden goes through a long summer. If the press still had teeth, there would be covers of magazines with a miniature Biden stomping on a risk board while stereotypes of foreign leaders saying he will be gone soon enough.
I think that is more pressing than the Ukraine collapse for Nuland. The genocide is ongoing, and Biden may have mucked up things by trying to move against Netanyahu without cutting off military support with that Gaetz visit. It would be easy enough to blame republicans for Ukraine not getting funding.
She could get into films. John Waters is still alive and his career hasn’t been the same since the passing of Divine. Nuland has an uncanny resemblance to Divine and could easily star in a remake of Pink Flamingos or Female Trouble.
No way, Nuland lacks Divine’s charm and natural sex appeal.
Nobody wore those cha-cha heels like the great Divine.
Her latest photo shows her having the appeal of fat pig. She’s been hogging well at her husband’s right wing foundation.
Reboot the former tout de suite! Any movie that makes Nuland eat s**t is OK by me.
I suppose Jabba the Hutt would be typecasting …
Is this the “nasty surprise” she recently promised Russia from that empty Ukrainian square in the dark of night?
Hope the nasty surprise will be the sight and stench of her rotten, putrid intestines and fat flow when she commits seppuku.
Even though she has no shame or honour, her committing seppuku is unfortunately just a wish but hope dies last.
The nasty surprise will be longer-range missiles and terrorism, quite possibly supplanted by NATO troops on the ground as Russia dithers.
A.M.F., Cookies.
Victoria has not been looking good recently, so maybe she is stepping down because of health issues.
OTOH, as she’s a smart cookie (certainly a much brighter bulb than her putative boss, Blinken), maybe she decided that the Republicans will win in November and she’s positioning herself for a job in the new administration. After all, she used to work for Dick Cheney. These swamp critters have a way of returning when you least expect them:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJfqyM8XTgo
Though I will pour myself an extra glass of wine this evening to celebrate her departure, I remain cautious: after all, her replacement might be even worse than she was. We don’t know yet. Time will tell.
In the meantime, good riddance.
I think it’s likely that Biden had a temper tantrum about Ukraine and decided that cookies was the cause of all his troubles, so asked for her resignation. I doubt if she would voluntarily leave and wonder if there will be any survivors among Biden’s advisors come November. Sudden anger is supposed to be a symptom of mental degradation but he has had that for decades. Robert Barnes says he has the personality of a street level enforcer.
Or he / HRC / the Dems wants to make her Vice-President (or even the Replacement President candidate)?
Praise the Lawd!!
No more “Cookies” to kick around. What will we do?
Rats, sinking ship? In his latest Alastair Crooke says that the revelations in the much discussed NYT story on US/Ukraine intelligence cooperation may be a “Dear John” letter to Ukraine as the CIA washes their hands and performs cya on the details of their involvement. Taibbi and Kirn take this same line in their latest talk.
Regardless the departure of Nuland is to be celebrated. How much damage has this woman done?
I saw the story is another attempt to gin up support for Moar War, see, look how useful our puppet is, we need them we can’t give them up now ZOMG!
War whore is no more –
https://apnews.com/article/state-department-victoria-nuland-retiring-russia-ukraine-b06cfb9ca517f1a7f2e10ee7520e3086
“Retiring”, my sweet aunt Fannie. She got a push, and I’d really like to know from whom. If I had to guess, I’d say it had something to do with trying to salvage either the Ukraine or Gaza situation, or maybe both, since Biden’s approval is tanking as both wars continue.
Perhaps it was some foreign leader telling little Anthony that either Nuland retires, or she gets a missile up her nether regions the next time she sets foot outside the US for the purposes of threatening other nations. Then after one of those scenarios plays out, we can start negotiating.
New gig with the Clinton campaign?
Why did i visualize HRC, Nuland and Harris in a Mexican standoff involving hatpins?
Our super-wise, unconflicted, and buddha-neutral supreme court just re-wrote the Constitution by ignoring the plain language and obvious intent of the Constitution. Not to mention overlooking 200+ years worth of precedents to do so. Anybody have a problem with that?
If you are talking about the Trump decision, then all that happened was that the Court found that the States are only entitled to decide on State matters and not on Federal ones – like the election of a President. If they had not done so, then every future Presidential election would be a matter of the fifty States deciding which Presidential candidate that they will strike from the ballots. That way lay madness.
Yes, they should really have thrown those insurrectionists, Washington, Adams, and Jefferson, out of presidential races some 200 years ago.
Some apparently believe that “the plain language and obvious intent of the Constitution” is a settled matter. They are wrong. There are, in fact, no permanently settled questions (certainly not political questions – eternal vigilance, and all that).
Asserting “200+ years worth of precedents” were circumvented or ignored in the SCOTUS decision yesterday is quite an extraordinary claim, so I hope you have extraordinary evidence to support it. A link or three might be useful, respectful of your readers in truth. A disappointed rant alone offers no good basis for discussion.
“plain language and obvious intent” is the mote in the eye of the zealot.
Sorry if you are bitter. Seems Turley predicted this one correctly, MSNBC not so much.
Others are taking it badly
https://jonathanturley.org/2024/03/05/raskin-and-the-agents-of-chaos-democrats-prepare-to-resume-disqualification-efforts-in-congress/
After the Chile coup Kissinger supposedly said that Chile couldn’t be allowed to go communist due to the irresponsibility of its voting public. Perhaps Raskin, Debbie etc can call their beffort the Kissinger Bill.
>>>After the Chile coup Kissinger supposedly said that Chile couldn’t be allowed to go communist due to the irresponsibility of its voting public.
I read about that. Kissinger’s corrective was the 1973 Chilean coup d’état by General Augusto Pinochet and his junta. Their goons removed (usually with torture and often with bonus murder) all those leftists and “communists” troublemakers, which included much of the faculty, student activists, entertainers, writers, many politicians. Really, anyone to the left of Attila the Hun who was at all concerned about human rights.
Although in Central and South America during the 1970s and 80s, there was much talk about the Jakarta Method amongst members of the various countries oligarchies, so far I haven’t heard our benevolent masters talking again about it; it could be that they are more covert about it. After all, there is a less brutal form of Operation Condor, which includes Julian Assange as well as activists and journalists such as Craig Murray, I think.
Yes, the more I think on it, the more I see the activities of the various Western governments of today and Operation Condor in the 1970s and 80s as alike. The American prison system including the guards, local police, and the FBI was used to imprison and/or murder troublesome activists in the 1960s and 1970s with the practice never entirely going away.
The thing is that the Jakarta Method and Operation Condor with their associated actions including coups were extraordinarily monstrous with massive amounts of murder, rape, torture, mass firings, and exiling of anyone who was suspected, not proven, of being a problem including those of merely being connected including by blood, marriage, and often friendship. However, IIRC, the governments were also, in their own monstrous ways, competent or at least effective.
I do not see our oligarchic Uniparty and its masters being so because anything out of the ordinary that requires being thoughtful, planning, and cooperating with others, in a common goal at all. That is aside from the lawfare, electoral corruption, propaganda and censorship, and violent policing including the use of false charges (which happened with Occupy Wall Street) and the occasional murder, plus subverting peaceful organizations. Anything else and they are hopeless. Open, widespread resistance, even if peaceful, they will not know how to handle and will panic, including anything of the level of the rioting and protests of the 1960s and 1970s. Meaning that the police or security state will ultimately panic and be even more bloody and less effective than the earlier police states. One could infer that the mess of the past 4-8 years, including Covid, is a deliberate part of the régime’s efforts at suppression, but I don’t know about that. Covid hits everyone.
So anyone who promotes the russiagate conspiracy theory is now ipso facto branded as an “insurrectionist” and must be kicked out of office?
Do tell!
No. Not me🤐
Our super-wise, unconflicted, and buddha-neutral supreme court just re-wrote the Constitution by ignoring the plain language and obvious intent of the Constitution….
[ This is of course incorrect, and demeaning the Supreme Court as an institution is offensive. Actually, the united Supreme Court acted precisely as necessary to protect the Constitution. ]
No problem here, but I took the anti-TDS pill years ago.
You might enjoy reading: The Non-Originalist Decision That May Save Trump
The precedent was set by In re Griffin (1869)
https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F.Cas/0011.f.cas/0011.f.cas.0007.html
The 1869 decision was described as “consequentialist”, stating that:
I’m actually enjoying the irony that in the past few years the Democrats have been spanked twice by the Court for not taking the legislative actions necessary to seal the deal on both Roe V. Wade and their new favorite clause of the Constitution. Oh and that the one time they publicly wanted states rights to have power on a federal matter that got rejected. Too funny.
Oh, and I am also amused that you think there are over two hundred years of precedents regarding a Constitutional amendment that is just over 150 years old. Or did you miss that being a revision it resets the clock on the items it covers, because it is now the Constitutional basis for them. And considering the reading you favor was not the one considered in the 1860’s it probably was not as plain and obvious as you choose to believe.
Richard H Caldwell:
You just got the news about Citizens United? Where have you been?
Caldwell trollboy suffers from sever cranial/rectal inversion. He doesn’t know where he’s been because he can only see his small intestine. How he breathes with his head up there is what I want to know…
To be blunt, the Supreme Court judgement that individual states should not/can not decide who has the right to to run for president of the entire nation, is a no-brainer, as the unanimity would suggest.
Biden and the Democrats are so afraid of losing to the Orange haired monster that they’ve been trying everything to stop him from running. They hardly expected the SC to make the decision against them. While I think the SC is as corrupt as the politicians in this country, this decision puts a stop to using the courts to stop opposition parties from participating in elections. I would like to see the two party duopoly broken up so people will have a real choice in voting.
Uh, given how the Congress was more than happy to use the 14th Amendment against Victor Berger, I don’t think it will benefit third parties. It also won’t stop states being willing to bend over backwards when parties fail to meet guidelines (Texas, 2008). It also won’t stop parties rigging elections (McCain 2000, Sanders 2016, Sanders & Gabbard 2020, Anyone not Biden or Trump, 2024…).
I suppose one doesn’t want to become a nervous nellie, but I sympathize with the look on the face of Slovak Prime Minister Fico in Links.
Constant escalation tactics by the US/NATO whether in bellicose rhetoric or provocative acts of drone/missile terrorism on civilians, the Operation Nordic Response exercise etc, etc, plus the sinking by UKR/UK sea drones of yet another Russian patrol boat off Crimea last night and countless aerial drone attacks on Russia proper mean apocalypse in the near future to me too.
Following Putin’s latest warning last week, I don’t see how Russia can avoid hitting back at Ukraine’s co-belligerents who constantly goad them. Then the balloon goes up. Perhaps nobody wants to dwell on the situation, but to me the times are extraordinarily dangerous.
I’ve said the same thing. Russia has failed to respond to escalation after escalation.
The West has seen this, not as reasonableness or humanitarianism, but as contemptible weakness. Had Russia used appropriate force from the outset, the whole point would be moot, just as the West dared not lift a finger during the Invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.
“The West has seen this, not as reasonableness or humanitarianism, but as contemptible weakness.”
Typical behavior of garden variety bullies. But what happens when Putin says the same thing you just did in a speech, and the next day the NYT gives Biden the head’s up that he can no longer see the Washington monument from his window?
Russia sat in witness to the disappointing results of our “Shock and Awe” campaigns, so why assume that yet another one on their parts would have been any different? They are doing just fine without one. Russia has done what it thought was requisite, and will continue to do so. The results will speak for themselves.
I’d love to believe. Truly I would but the results haven’t come and NATO only continues to escalate and condition its populace for WWIII.
For that matter, the Shock And Awe campaigns did exactly what they were supposed to do, that is, destroy the state power of their victims. It was what happened afterwards when things went pear-shaped. That doesn’t really apply to Ukraine, for reasons I’ve mentioned in the past.
So, for example in Iraq, they replaced the former Hussein government with one that is controlled by Iran. That would have been baked in regardless of how many insurgents they left behind the lines, so how effective was the initial plan anyway?
The slower Russian version has had the effect of sorting out who actually wants to have Russian governance and left the US to whine about Putin taking kids off the frontlines and sending them to summer camps. The differences could not be more stark.
Russia has all but achieved its’ goals at this point. Instead of just getting neutrality and independent status for the Donbass, as they initially wanted for Ukraine, they are going to get all of the territory east of the Dneiper and the Black sea coast, they are going to get neutrality, demilitarization and denazification of rump Ukraine, and it will be entirely due to NATO intransigence. Most importantly, they have shown NATO to be a paper tiger and deterred further aggressions against them lest they lose what they have left of their dignity.
I’m just not seeing the downsides for them. They have, unfortunately, lost a lot of people, but in hindsight it is a hell of a lot less than they lost in the Nineties due to Western interference in their internal affairs. That is ultimately what they were worried about, and it is now completely taken off the table for the forseeable future.
Just to add, I understand your view as a former resident of such places as Poland and Ukraine. The US must look a lot larger there than it does from here. As a resident of the US that has watched our wars since VietNam, though, I have to say that we have not won a war since Grenada. If we were to restrict our efforts to such places as Vanuatu and and maybe the Azores I would have much more confidence in our abilities, but that has not been the case.
Track records matter, and ours is not particularly good.
https://sociology.yale.edu/sites/default/files/invasion_of_grenada_foresight.pdf
1986
The American invasion of Grenada: a note on false prophecy
By Wendell Bell
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the reasons, especially the assertions about the future, given by the US administration under President Reagan, to justify the decision to attack and invade the Caribbean island of Grenada.
Design/methodology/approach – The methodology is analysis of existing records and reports on the assertions, events, and decisions leading to the invasion.
Findings – The Reagan administration gave three main reasons for the invasion. They claimed that Americans on Grenada, particularly the students attending the St George’s University Medical School, would be harmed from continuing social disruption on Grenada; that the militarization of Grenada was intended as a means for the future export of terrorism or revolution to its Caribbean neighbors; and that the planned international airport at Point Salines was intended to be a future Soviet-Cuban military base. Each was false…
Wendell Bell is Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Yale University.
Hey, don’t forget Panama and Manuel Noriega.
Yes, and Russia’s track record, is particularly good.
Over the past few weeks, events keep reminding me where the expression “Russians are slow to saddle up, but ride fast” came from. Russia has been doing what Russia has always done and is now in full gallop. It won’t be the first time that those who underestimated her found themselves diving for the bushes.
I do not have a drop of Slavic blood in me, FWIW.
In the case of Iraq, the goal was to turn it into a failed state that cannot threaten Israel or our Saudi clients. That worked just dandy. (The war was never about “oil” – Saddam would have been delighted to sell oil freely for dollars on world markets.)
Russia has not achieved all its goals yet, not by any means, and we should not count its chickens before they hatch. Especially as NATO is not done escalating. We’ve seen the premature declarations of victory in the past. I’d love to have believed them as well. But I can see what is before my eyes.
For that matter, since you mentioned human casualties, a lot of good people in Ukraine were murdered or are in the Kiev regime’s dungeons, people who love Russia. That didn’t have to happen.
I really am not as bloodthirsty as some here think. Far from it. But I have enough experience with @ssholes and barroom bullies to know that if you are going to fight, you better fight to win. Even if you lose, you better make them hurt. This “just the tip” style of fighting just earns you the contempt of the @ssholes, and makes the beating worse.
“Saddam would have been delighted to sell oil freely for dollars”
Not quite. In 2000 he insisted on changing from USD to EUR, as he considered USD the money of the enemy.
And supposedly right before the invasion, Iraq had made quite the windfall from the change.
How did they work “just dandy”? Seems like assassinating Soleimani was an admission that it was a total fail on their part, not to mention the Chinese brokered peace agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia after their oil facilities got droned. Iran now has control over its’ immediate sphere of influence, witness the Houthis and the inability of any “coalition of the willing” to do anything about them. We can drop billions of dollars worth of bombs and literally have no effect upon the actions of their allies in the region.
And people with Russian sympathies were being killed by Ukraine prior to the SMO, fourteen thousand of them in the civil war after the Maidan coup. People were already dying, and Putin acknowledged that many more would as well when he announced the SMO. Wars are always messy, he didn’t actually want to start one, but when you are given no choice that is what you do.
Every channel and news report that I watch is predicting the end of both the EU and NATO. They are also saying that there is nothing that either can do to stop it. If that is not bringing the hurt then I really don’t know what would. Hubris has met its’ Nemesis, and the rest are just details.
I always thought they went into Iraq out of a hubristic desire to set up a (new) pro-American regime to counter Iran. In that case, it did not work out so well. It’s entirely possible (likely, even) that different groups in the US elite had different motives in mind. It certainly would explain why their policy there and in Afghanistan was such a mess.
As for leaving Iraq a failed state, 1) could they not have simply let it fall on its own? It was already pretty battered IIRC, certainly not a credible military threat by then if it ever was before; 2) did they need to invade it directly for that, as opposed to simply doing what they later did in Libya and Syria? That seems to work about as well for the purpose and is cheaper (didn’t work all the way in Syria, granted, but it is still in a terrible shape from it). But maybe that’s just Obama’s famous smarts that Bush didn’t have.
I think you generally invade and occupy a country to establish your own control (whether for resources or for geopolitical games or to satisfy the ideological prerogative of spreading democracy; or for all three plus career considerations), not just to wreck the place.
There may have been multiple goals rolling around.
Bush seemed to have an inferiority complex regarding his dad, and wanted to pin 9/11 on Iraq from the get go.
Cheney and the neocons may have seen invading Iraq and Afghanistan as a prelude to going after Iran, that age old blight on US “honor”.
But then the whole thing got bogged down as the locals were not as easily subdued as first assumed. So instead the whole thing turned into a 20 year quagmire.
LOL! You a one note samba, fella, and desperately need to find a new tune.
I don’t know if this will make you feel any better, but my view of the situation is a little more sanguine.
NATO is not going to war with Russia, as any decision to do so would have to be unanimous. There are several NATO countries that simply would not go along, including Fico’s. So you would be looking at unilateral action by individual nations within NATO, and I am not sure their resolve would survive a Kinzhal to some downtown park in Brussels, Washington or London. A high profile warning shot across the bow will be all that is necessary to concentrate neoconservative minds should one become necessary.
Russia has lots of options, and NATO only has lots of adjectives at their disposal; they have practically disarmed themselves, conventional terroristic attacks are all they are capable of at this point, and they know it. If the big German plan was to TRY to take out a bridge, I wouldn’t worry overmuch about WWIII happening any time soon, much less a nuclear exchange. At worst we are going to see some very embarrassing bloody noses.
Agreed, it needs to be unanimous, but what about the apparent willingness of certain German military leaders to contrive political deceptions and tricks, just like their forebears did way back with the Reichstag fire, or the Polish attack on a certain radio station.
Could something be manufactured which leads to an unanimous NATO decision?
I’ve hypothesized that NATO wants an air war, since they have considerable advantage over Russia in number of planes, and also that NATO’s planes are probably stockpiled in every NATO country adjacent, waiting for the go-ahead to saturate the airspace. This is probably more sellable to reluctant NATO members than boots on the ground.
I don’t know. I can’t think of a false flag large enough to get some of those NATO countries in line. What could they do that would incent Turkey or Hungary to agree to something like that?
And an air war would end very quickly. NATO has lots of planes, but they are far enough away from the front that they would need bases in places like Poland and Romania; easy targets for hypersonic missiles, that, from what I read, can pack the same kind of punch as “tactical” nukes. Trash a few of those bases and the planes couldn’t even take off (IIRC, the air intakes for planes like f-16’s are on the undersides and would suck up any debris). So that would mean that they would have to be based even further from the front lines, which would mean tanker planes for refueling.
Get all that stuff in the air and then the differential for air defense comes into play; they would have no ground cover from surface to air missiles. Russia would just pick them out of the skies, which is something that none of them could really afford. That and they are back ordered for decades already even as Russia is already on a war footing for manufacture of war materiel.
And all this for a few Nazis in the European hinterlands? I just don’t see it happening, but I could be wrong. I lost a bet last year when Germany voluntarily closed down the Nordstream pipelines even though it was clear that it would do terrible things to their economy. They are not some of our brighter specimens. If they are up for that kind of punishment, I am sure that Russia would be happy to take them on.
It is my understanding when they talk about hypersonic weaponss beings ‘as powerful as a small nuclear weapon’ they are comparing energy delivered to a specific target area. A hypersonic projective embodies a huge amount of kinetic energy (joules) where it impacts, probably equivalent to a few tons of TNT equivalent. That is how the missile can punch through 50 or 60 meters of rock.
Even a ‘small’ nuclear weapon delivers many orders of magnitude more destructive energy, but spread over a much wider area. So a small nuke impact detonating against bunker under 50m of rock might well destroy that bunker…. and also the countryside for quite some distance (kilometers) all around. The hypersonic missile impact has a much, much more localised effect. Don’t be with 300 meters are you’re likely okay, particularly if ‘you’ are armoured/hardened.
That is my understanding as well. Drop a few of those on some runways and it might be difficult to fix them in any kind of reasonable time frame, and you wouldn’t have the collateral effects. People like Mercouris have said that runways are easily fixed, but I cannot imagine that filling in huge craters is the type of thing he is talking about.
No one will defeat Russia in a ground war. Full stop.
The issue is that NATO taunting could lead to errors in judgement where a real nuclear exchange occurs. The atomic cascade could fry us all.
I’m not convinced that air wars are what they used to be, insofar as airframes appear to be little more than expensive targets for increasingly sophisticated missile defence systems in an ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance) environment where there’s nowhere to hide.
With the right mix of promises and threats, Fico and others would fall in line/
Even if he didn’t, we’d see a NATO war in all but name,
Nordic Response (formerly Cold Response) may look ill timed, but it has been held every other year since 2006 (baring the issue of COVID).
Far more worrying would be that USA is being allowed, via legal loopholes, to set up a permanent presence in Norway. Something that was not a thing even at he height of the cold war.
Speaking of delusions….
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/it-s-past-time-to-quit-hoping-the-courts-are-going-to-stop-trump/ar-BB1jlx9b
I suppose it’s a sliver of reality showing that some people with TDS are giving up on lawfaring Trump out of race, but it’s just as delusional that they should think there are magical anti-Trump votes that they can find out there. Nate Silver, I think, pointed out that the less likely voters are far less enthused about Biden. Likely Dem voters, otoh, are as pro-Biden/anti-Trump as ever. If turnout goes up, it’s likely to be worse for Biden, in other words. If TDS people think that they can just scream how evil Trump (they imagine) is and the not-so-likely voters will be riled up, especially after four years of Biden, they might as well think Ukraine is “still winning” and Israel is just defending itself (I think they do, actually.)
Earth is still flat after all, it seems–if you believe hard enough.
If the Dems spent one-quarter of the time on winning concrete material benefits for their voters and Americans as they spend on stop-T lawfare, why they’d win in a walk at the ballot box. Funny they don’t do that. huh…. (And the really funny part is that T is still making push back against bad trade US deals a part of his campaign, to loud applause.)
Taibbi’s column in audio, utube. ~5 minutes.
MSNBC, Paul Krugman Panic Over “White Rural Rage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Br9SplW0rg
Team Blue loathes 80% of their potential voters. Nullification 2.0 was just another attempt to avoid gotv type activities which require rubbing shoulder with the poors. Every dollar spent on field organizers and offices is money not given to James Carville or setting up for a celebrity event where they could meet Taylor. I’m 100% convinced Pelosi went to the Ravens game instead of the 49ers game in a desperate attempt to score attempt picture with Swift.
Even now, their immigration strategy is dedicated to winning republican votes by showing how xenophobic Team Blue is.
Yep. It’s now the party of the donors. Of course the Repubs have always been the party of the rich so they don’t have to pretend.
Back in the day, those of us who used to volunteer for the Democrats used to mock the Republicans because they had to pay people to canvass and get out the vote. Then we got purged for being insufficiently “good team players”. Ah well. FAFO.
as ive related, i spent ’06 til 2013 a glorified housewife, in “early retirement”, and pretty much laid up in the dern bed half the time…waiting around for a hip replacement.
during this time, the Great Debate over “Obamacare” happened…and there i was, active online in faceborg(new to me, at the time) and sundry leftylib/dem comments pages.
I lobbied, informally, for obamacare…even after they preemptively scrubbed the public option, etc.
but then rickfuckingperry led the way in showing just how easy it was for states to nullify the law as constructed.
and the answer from libdemland was “suck it up and move”…which is exactly what goptea folks had been telling me forever in regards to jobs as well as things like medicaid.
add in the immediate O turn to wall street, as well as only a maybe sorta little bit better narrative on foreign policy(but Herself overruled, apparently)….and yeah…I’m with you in Rockland.
screw the dems.
give me an american labor party…or even better, actual libertarian socialists…or i aint playing anymore.
again, a buzzard with 2 right wings, circling into the ground.
I usually say turkey, since they can’t fly, but buzzard is evocative
I would say that Tam R And Team D both are the party of the rich, but Team R is the party of local gentry, with white Evangelicals as junior partners.
Team D is the party of the PMC, with various minority grievance groups as junior partners.
As Col. Macgregor says, “Washington DC is a donor occupied zone.”
If it’s just donors that are the problem, the polls would actually know what the truth is. I think it’s far worse: they actually believe what they say and all that donors do is to feed and maintain that delusion so that the spigot stays on.
“Paul Krugman Panic Over ‘White Rural Rage’ ”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/26/opinion/white-rural-voters.html
February 26, 2024
The Mystery of White Rural Rage
By Paul Krugman
[ The artificial racial and regional stereotyping is being used to control voting and strikes me as unprincipled. ]
– Speaking of delusions (2):
Well, I just spent an inordinate amount of time reading the Hacker and Pierson article ‘The New Blue Divide.’ The Dems don’t need to lawfare Trump to win. They just have to make clear to all those working class folks how progressive the economic policies of the Biden administration really are. You see,
“A dramatic transformation has taken place in the U.S. Democratic Party. For several decades it was moving rightward on economic issues, following the same trend as many center-left parties in wealthy democracies. But over the past few years it has made a sharp U-turn, boldly embracing broad and costly economic programs, industrial policy, and active regulation. Indeed, in 2021 Democrats pursued the most ambitious and redistributive economic agenda their party has attempted in more than half a century. Contrary to frequent denunciations of Democratic “wokeness” (whether from the right or the left), economic issues—not cultural ones—have become the core of the party’s agenda.”
So while past Democratic administrations may have been neoliberal corporate shills, *this* administration is different. So is our increasingly progressive Democratic party:
“… Why have Democratic elites chosen to embrace an ambitious redistributive agenda, reversing the pattern of Piketty’s Brahmin left?”
“A key part of the answer is clearly the increased strength of the party’s progressive wing. The nomination process in our two-party system, where candidates must pass muster with a primary electorate, has built-in potential to amplify the base’s voice. Both Sanders and Elizabeth Warren placed economic populism at the heart of their recent presidential candidacies, and this emphasis is shared among congressional progressives more broadly, as can be seen in their political rhetoric…”
The primary role of academics like Hacker and Pierson is to convince liberals that yes, the Democrats are still good and the working masses just don’t understand reality; i.e. the Earth is still flat. If they could just convince people outside their liberal bubbles maybe a few more of those magical anti-Trump votes might appear.
Nothing on foreign policy in this tome, of course.
Gosh, speaking of things that are supposedly obvious but aren’t, I missed that minor revolution…entirely. And if someone like me who follows things missed it believe me overworked humans struggling to feed their families and keep a roof over their heads did too. But then telling people things are better when those stresses do not ease or change isn’t going to work either.
Delusional is right.
The key phrase: “convince liberals,” i.e. people who don’t need convincing to back Biden (but want to feel good while doing so). The economy puzzle is puzzling in that many serious people think it’s a puzzle at all. People may not be that well-informed, but they aren’t stupid, and they know why they are worried and they have good evidence around them for being worried. The problem is that the people who are puzzled don’t understand this, presume that they have data on the entirety of the universe, and those who say otherwise must be crazy, or worse, heretical (That those are discontented with the economy, especially if they voted for Trump, are somehow brainwashed by “Right Wing Propaganda” or some such has become a pretty sizable industry in certain academic circles, sadly). I’m sufficiently part of Hacker/Pierson camp to say that they aren’t 100% wrong, but they are crazy if they seriously believe that whatever has been going on is sufficiently visible, or even if they are, there are people who will be grateful for them. (but the same people thought a few dozen NATO tanks would sweep aside the Russkies in a hurry, eh?)
After three aborted (pardon the pun) attempts, I forced myself to read this, um…, lengthy oration.
To quote I think david byrne…”you’re talking a lot, but you’re not saying anything.”
“With a slightly stronger Democratic hand in Congress, the agenda of 2021 could be revived. The money will certainly be there—the only benefit of the spectacular transfer of financial resources to corporations and the wealthy over the past generation—and if the electoral shifts we have charted endure, there is a real chance that the political momentum could be as well.”
SMH. “We [the dems] became the party of the rich people, now how can we get people to vote for us?”
I think maybe a slogan would work, I’m thinking “trickle down!” might work…
Take time to download and read Colorado’s report on Long Covid. NOTHING is said about a layered approach to prevention, like cleaning up the air in public places or mandatory N95 use in medical settings. (Not even hand washing is encouraged!). Vaccination is touted as THE way to prevent future Long Covid cases in Colorado. Profoundly mis-guided thinking. Assumes that vaccines prevent COVID and therefore solve the Long Covid problem. I love the simplicity of it.
https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2024-03-05/white-house-lifts-covid-testing-rule-for-people-around-president-biden
White House Lifts COVID Testing Rule for People Around President Biden
Well! There you have it. How to get rid of the inconvenient incumbent who refuses to retire.
That’s really great news. This might be a fantastic entry for FA, FO this year! (f**k around, find out)
I can’t think of any possible outcome from all this that might make me laugh harder, than if this plays out the way it ought to in a just universal. We shall see!
Let the hair sniffing commence.
I’ll leave this here as a stand alone. Sasha Latypova talking to Clayton Morris on Redacted. utube, ~13+ minutes.
Here’s what REALLY happened with the Covid vaccine | Redacted with Natali and Clayton Morris
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1t4KYNjHPY
Victory Nuland is resigning her post. I guess after the her failed disaster in Ukraine project, maybe it’s been decided she’s earned a promotion to over see US proxy war in Taiwan. Kind of like Ursula von der Leyen. We will soon see.
Going out on a limn here, and expecting that there will be many more resignations, reassignments or other managed transitions over the next several months. Some of those will be more terminal, and maybe even a few with extreme prejudice.
Watch the domestic and international financial markets and then see how the ripples flow through the political and media markets. What can’t go forever, pick your favorites, will stop.
Yves: Best wishes for a full and speedy recovery!!!!
She’s not sick!
Cue the Monty Python bring out your dead scene.
Michael Pettis is no doubt a splendid economist, but he has for years been continually wrong about China’s economic growth. Pettis wants to slash Chinese investment, even though Robert Solow long ago correctly explained that investment and resulting technology advance are the prime drivers of economic growth.
Real GDP in China grew at 5.2% in 2023, with real per capita disposable income growing at 6.1%. Per capita disposable income in relatively lower income rural areas grew at 8.4% in 2023, which was just what Chinese planners wanted.
China will continue to focus on investment and technology advance in 2024, and there is every reason to expect another fine, fine growth year.
https://english.news.cn/20240305/d44cc4054efe4e5e99b06d0d22dfde03/c.html
March 5, 2024
China unveils 2024 growth targets with focus on high-quality development
* China aims to achieve a GDP growth rate of around 5 percent for 2024, one of the key development goals unveiled Tuesday as the national legislature began its annual session.
* A proactive fiscal policy and a prudent monetary policy will be continued in 2024, with enhanced consistency of the macro policy orientation.
* Major pro-growth steps including boosting consumption and effective investment will be rolled out to underpin the country’s high-quality development.
BEIJING — China seeks to achieve a GDP growth rate of around 5 percent for 2024, the latest signal that the world’s second-largest economy is committed to high-quality development despite uncertainties at home and abroad.
The projected goal, which remains unchanged from the previous year’s growth target, is one of the key development objectives unveiled in the government work report delivered by Premier Li Qiang to the national legislature, which began its annual session Tuesday.
In 2024, China aims to create over 12 million jobs in urban areas, and keep the surveyed urban unemployment rate at about 5.5 percent, said the report. The country also plans to spend 1.66554 trillion yuan (around 234.5 billion U.S. dollars) on defense, up 7.2 percent, and sets an inflation target of about 3 percent.
A REASONABLE GOAL
The GDP growth target of around 5 percent for this year was set after the Chinese economy showed solidity and resilience in 2023 by recording year-on-year growth of 5.2 percent.
“In setting the growth rate at around 5 percent, we have taken into account the need to boost employment and incomes and prevent and defuse risks,” Li said.
This growth rate is well aligned with the objectives of the 14th Five-Year Plan and the goal of basically realizing modernization. It also takes account of the potential for growth and the conditions supporting growth and reflects the requirement to pursue progress and strive to deliver, according to Li.
Han Baojiang, a professor with the Party School of the Communist Party of China Central Committee (National Academy of Governance) and a national political advisor, said the GDP growth objective is both “down-to-earth and uplifting” and shows that the government continues to emphasize the quality of growth.
Tian Xuan, vice dean with Tsinghua University’s PBC School of Finance and a national lawmaker, said the projected growth rate is in line with the availability of policy tools and the sustainability of economic development, leaving ample room for promoting the shift of growth drivers and coping with external uncertainties…
RE: Kind of Blue
Wow! Great article. I play “So what!” on my piano almost everyday trying to recreate the magic of that Dorian mode masterpiece. The album is a must listen!
True dat! The best album he made in my opinion.
Back in the day my mom wanted to understand my fascination with John Coltrane, so I gave her a Kind of Blue CD. I told her “If you don’t like this, you won’t like jazz.”
I sit in with a local college Jazz band on occasion. The band leader is a top notch Sax player that emulates Coltrane with big steps. It’s all musical magic.
I’d have to agree but “In a Silent Way” is a close second.
as a singer, I am smitten with Coltrane and Hartman/s masterwork.
https://t.me/ukraine_watch/17924
From the link: “An information sign at one of the Ukrainian border checkpoints
It says: “If you cross the border illegally, the border guards will use weapons, including FPV drones”
Till the last Ukrainian…”
Now, pretend this were to be in a country that the United States does not like….
Let’s pretend if this were in United States…..
(I suppose United States counts as a country that the swamp creatures don’t like, too)
is the boston review article meant to be comic relief? could not get past the first paragraph.
There is a more serious study that undergirds some of these arguments, albeit without pretensions about current politics: “Rich States, Poor States, Red States, Blue States” by Andrew Gelman and his former students. Their key finding was that (at the time of their study), in poorer states, largely dominated by Republicans, the partisan division follows the classic income/wealth divide: the poor are Dems, the rich are Reps. In the richer states, dominated by the Democrats, this is not so. At the time of their study, they did not find any state where the correlation between partisanship and wealth were reversed, but, maybe things went further than that (race was one of the major reasons why the reversed pattern did not hold in the richer states, IIRC)? (The subtitle for a paper that came out of this study was “What’s the matter with Connecticut?”
I think this has an interesting implication for how intraparty coalitions might evolve (and the significance of a non-Southerner becoming the standard bearer for the Reps). The implication of the correlations is that, nationally, the Dems are the party of rich people from the richer states and the Reps are the party of rich people from the poorer states. But the opportunity for subverting each other’s adversaries lies with gaining credibility with the poorer folk in “the other’s'” territory. One has to give credit to Trump for helping the Republicans do exactly that, while the Dems seem to take the poor, even in the poorer states, for granted.
Some of the response pieces are worth a look
“Matt Stoller @matthewstoller
If the environmental movement is arguing the U.S. should destroy its own automotive industrial base in favor of China’s to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, then they will become a fringe and irrelevant group.”
Please notice the incorrect and intimidating way in which this argument is made. There is of course no intent for any US industrial destruction being made by environmentalists. “China” is typically being portrayed as a threat when that is not the case at all.
Superb historian Adam Tooze has been trying to explain just how the supposed “China threat” is being used and how unfortunate this is.
The recent actions of the CDC prove that the Biden Administration cares just as much about the American People as they do about the people of Palestine.
Matt Stoller: If the environmental movement is arguing the U.S. should destroy its own automotive industrial base in favor of China’s to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, then they will become a fringe and irrelevant group.
One of the few times I have to differ from Stoller. The American auto industry is destroying itself. They refuse to make energy efficient cars, whether ICE, hybrid or EVs. If the government can’t mandate them into producing at least some efficient cars then they need some competition. This happened in the 70s with the importation of the Japanese cars.
under the new deal and Gatt, government forced, seat belts, shatterless glass, millage standards. just to name a few.
america has gone a long long time since bill clinton announced the era of big government is over. and the average american no longer understands what governance is.
what bill clinton set up was economic suicide, i agree with stoller.
markets are not self regulating, self policing nor self righting.
i wish the chinese all the best of luck, but not on our dime.
Re the article on the Super-Elite Disconnect…
They are inducting all the wolves in sheep’s clothing like George Galloway and the re-emergence of Jon Stewart to rebrand their attempt to solidify fascist Technocracy.
The new book “White Rural Rage” is another example of diverting attention from the real problem. Western leadership turned its back on democracy with the onset of neoliberalism, beginning in the mid-70’s with union-busting, then going full swing in the 80’s with privatization, mergers, outsourcing, wage stagnation, etc. Monopolies defanged government for public purpose, its original purpose, shut down regulations for themselves while micro-managing the people. Privatization, btw, is at the core of fascism.
If only those dirty, meddling hippies hadn’t been so successful in achieving quality of life gains like civil, labor, consumer safety, environmental protections and ENDING A WAR the previous decade, the veneer of a democratic society could’ve been properly affixed. Democracy in theory is fine… until it is activated.
How the Ruling Class Became Vulgar
“Well, they do need to keep these institutions going. They’re just not, it seems. There’s a hostility to reason, science, and culture — which, when the bourgeoisie was on the rise in the nineteenth century, used to be very important to its mission of establishing its legitimacy and domination of society. Now they just seem to be dominated by moneymaking and the accumulation of the maximum amount of money in the shortest period of time.”
I do recommend watching David Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis.
When the regime degenerates into mere looting, long term considerations like legitimation go out the window.
the Simplicius the Thinker article very good, except, its hilarious that newt was involved. after all, he partnered up will bill clinton and destroyed the new deal and Gatt. he is very responsible for the mess we find ourselves in. i am sure he thought the rich would rain down money on him, and he would get to hobnob with the WEF, instead he finds himself humiliated doing late night tv infomercials.
i also despise when free traders(globalists)are considered the left. they are anything but the left.
they are european liberals, the austrian school of economics, the chicago school of economics, the fraser inst., etc.. who relished and embraced fascism, its why woodrew wilson spent so much time with like minded people.
american liberalism was not the same as european liberalism, american liberlism was killed off by bill clinton.
Clinton finished what Carter, the first neoliberal president, set in motion.
correct, and their hands are drenched in blood.
“America’s Super-Elite Disconnect” is one wing of our elites complaining about the other wing. It defines elite in a way that includes the left-wing of the elites but excludes the right-wing. That it then finds that the elites are left leaning is simply tautology.
The left-wing and right-wing in the US both speak to widespread genuine concerns but neither is capable of solutions. The left-wing is aligned with the non-elected government, NGO, and academic bureaucracies and media. It can criticize individual actions of theirs but not those institutions as a whole. Ultimately the left defers to them. Thus, it mostly functions as camouflage for the interests of that wing of the elite.
The right-wing is aligned with corporate wealth. It can criticize specific corporations, especially those perceived as aligned with the left (does Disney in the totality of its actions actually promote either left or right values?), but winds up mostly functioning as camouflage for unbridled corporate predation.
Both sides are profoundly anti-democratic, as is becoming more and more overt.