For brilliant foliage, look no further than native trees AP
If You Think You Can Hold a Grudge, Consider the Crow NYT
‘I like to be in prison.’ Miami and Broward bank robber tells judge to give ‘me the max’ Miami Herald
Climate
Spain’s PM orders 10,000 troops and police to flood-hit Valencia BBC. Commentary:
This is the entrance ramp to an underground shopping centre car park with thousands of parking spaces. Rescuers have yet to dive down. This just gets more nightmarish https://t.co/1zFcmCUb9c
— Nate Bear (@NateB_Panic) November 2, 2024
Syndemics
Commentary:
Pandemic management for the last 4 years pic.twitter.com/XUBqbX6x61
— Outbreak Updates (@outbreakupdates) November 3, 2024
China?
China lifts all restrictions on foreign investment access in manufacturing sector CGTN
How China Uses Economic Sanctions War on the Rocks
After outcry, Chinese health body takes down propaganda aimed at boosting birth rate South China Morning Post
Xi Jinping’s Axis of Losers Stephen Hadley, Foreign Affairs
The State—and Fate—of America’s Indo-Pacific Alliances RAND
As America votes for new president, what are the 3 Cs and 3 Ts that will define Sino-US ties? Channel News Asia
Syraqistan
Netanyahu Spy Scandal: Leak Sabotaged Hostage Deal in Order to Save His Skin Tikkun Olam
Italy rocked by espionage scandal in which Mossad implicated YNet
* * * Iran’s Khamenei threatens ‘crushing response’ to Israel attacks France24
COL. Lawrence Wilkerson : Can Ukraine Survive as a Country? Judge Napolitano, YouTube. Starts with analysis of last Israel strike at Iran.
* * * Israel is falling far short of a U.S. ultimatum to increase flow of aid to Gaza, data shows PBS
* * * Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport Terminal 1 Closes Following easyJet, Ryanair & Wizz Air Exodus Simple Flying
European Disunion
Germany’s upstart leftists chip at pro-Ukraine consensus Reuters
Dear Old Blighty
What did not happen in the Budget Richard Murphy, Funding the Future
New Not-So-Cold War
The Ukraine War is Lost. Three Options Remain. Counterpunch
Putin unlikely to come to the negotiation table, regardless of who wins US election CNN
Ukraine’s Bradley Fighting Vehicle ‘Dilemma’ Can Be Explained in 2 Words The National Interest
Ukraine plans for two Americas: Harris aid or Trump peace push EuroMaidan
* * * SITREP 11/2/24: Another Big Tone Change as West Now Fears Ukraine’s Doom Simplicius the Thinker
NY Times Announces Ukraine Narrative Change Moon of Alabama
* * * Polish foreign minister suggests Ukraine buy Polish weapons on credit Ukrainska Pravda
Transcript of ‘Dialogue Works’, edition of 1 November 2024 Gilbert Doctorow, Armageddon Newsletter
* * * What went wrong for the EU in Georgia’s and Moldova’s election? BNE Intellinews
Moldova holds second round of presidential election Ukrainska Pravda
* * * The Salisbury Tales Paul Sutton, Free Speech Backlash
Putin has ruled Russia for 25 years. How did he last so long? Christian Science Monitor
2024
What to watch over the final weekend of the 2024 presidential campaign AP
Harris and Trump focus on battleground states entering final weekend of campaign PBS
Why Are Democrats Having Such a Hard Time Beating Trump? Nate Cohn, NYT
* * * National security leaders update:
UPDATED ENDORSEMENT: 1,043 National Security Leaders—including 10 Cabinet & 11 Service Secretaries, 253 retired Admirals & Generals, 49 Senior Enlisted, and 164 Ambassadors—proudly endorse Kamala Harris for President.
Full statement: https://t.co/ySwJYA29ZI #nationalsecurity pic.twitter.com/XPSbnHax2G
— National Security Leaders for America (@NSLforAmerica) November 2, 2024
For example (wait for it):
“As a conservative woman I could never vote for Kamala Harris b/c,,,”
What happened next was 3 separate attacks from this stranger! Her friend had to hold her back. I was called uneducated as she proceeded to give me her resumé.#Unhinged pic.twitter.com/q1jRO5yUNs— Annetta Catchings for Alexandria (@annetta_of) November 1, 2024
“I am a thirty-five year national security expert!”
* * * A shocking Iowa poll means somebody is going to be wrong Nate Silver, SIlver Bulletin
Trump ahead of Harris in Iowa in new Emerson College poll The Hill
Why the right thinks Trump is running away with the race Boston Globe
* * * Disinformation on the campaign trail threatens US election process France24
Voter fraud claims flood social media before US election BBC
* * * Contested state supreme court seats are site of hidden battle for abortion access Guardian
Infographic: US elections pivotal for agricultural trade, sustainability S&P Global
* * * I’m a geriatric physician. Here’s what I think is going on with Trump’s executive function STAT
Khaosmotic Epistemology: A Transdisciplinary Metatheory of Contemporary Legal Complexity? SSRN
Our Famously Free Press
Transcript – America This Week November 1, 2024: “The Celebrated New York Times Election Week Hit Job” Racket News
News consumers are more influenced by political alignment than by truth, study shows Phys.org. “We saw it on both political sides and even among people who scored well on a reasoning test. We were a bit surprised to see how widespread this tendency was. People were engaging in a lot of resistance to inconvenient truths.”
Digital Watch
Intel might be too big to fail — Washington policymakers are already discussing potential solutions if the chipmaker cannot recover Tom’s Hardware
Issue 69 – Nice Molly White, [citation needed]. Crypto.
CoffeeSpace is a Hinge-like app that wants to help you find your co-founder TechCrunch
Whose Garbage Becomes The Archive? – an interview with Eunsong Kim The New Inquiry
The Final Frontier
Space isn’t all about the ‘race’ – rival superpowers must work together for a better future Space.com
Class Warfare
Exhuming Dracula’s Ancestors: What Vampires Reveal About Our Latent Fears Literary Hub
A Mother Superior’s Demons JSTOR Daily
Antidote du jour (Dixi):
And a bonus:
— Posts Of Cats (@PostsOfCats) November 3, 2024
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here
Wise decision-making entails: 1) sophisticated use of knowledge 2) accounting for interests & viewpoints of all stakeholders 3) understanding implementation capacity 4) taking a long-term perspective 5) anticipating unintended consequences
from X….This election will be decided by women, and it won’t be anywhere as close as people think. Kamala Harris is on her way to a decisive victory on November 5, if not an outright landslide. The writing has been on the wall for the GOP since the corrupt Republican Supreme Court stripped women of their individual freedoms and bodily autonomy with that fateful Dobbs decision. Democrats have over-performed in every single election since the overturning of Roe v. Wade. The male-dominated punditry continually try to overlook and dismiss this dynamic. Many of us men simply don’t understand or appreciate how critical this issue is for women. For millions of women across America, particularly those living in Republican-controlled states, it’s literally a matter of life or death for them. This is not something they can simply “get over” or “move on” from. We are seeing a real shift happening within the electorate. Kamala Harris has a commanding lead with women in every reputable poll out there, and she is benefiting from the largest gender gap we have ever seen in any election. In the latest ABC News/Ipsos poll, Harris enjoys a 14-point advantage with women while Trump only has a 6 point margin with men. This sharp gender gap is reflected in several other polls. If these polls materialize in the election, it would spell an unmitigated disaster for Donald Trump and provide the groundwork for a stunning blue wave. We already know that women are registered to vote at a much higher rate than men. According to the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP), in recent years, the number of women registered to vote in the U.S. has typically been about 10 million more than the number of men registered to vote. Women have registered and voted at higher rates than men in every presidential election since 1980, with the turnout gap between women and men growing slightly larger with each successive presidential election. In this political war of the genders, you’d much rather have women on your side. More troubling for Donald Trump is Harris’s inroads with certain demographics where Republicans have historically been competitive: Among white college-educated women, Harris has a whopping 23-point lead in that same ABC News/Ipsos poll. Interestingly, she’s also leading with white college-educated men by 4 points in that poll. A total disaster for Trump anyway you cut it. This over-performance with women has made Harris very competitive in suburban areas all across America and lifted the fortunes of Democrats in some of most competitive races in the country. Once a reliable demographic for the GOP, the suburbs have steadily shifted to Democrats during the Trump era; that phenomenon is even more pronounced with Harris at the top of the Democratic ticket today. We see this manifested in a recent CNN poll where suburban voters back Harris over Trump 52% vs 44%, with suburban women backing Harris by an astonishing 55% vs 41%. There is also an NPR/PBS/Marist poll out there showing Harris with a massive 31-point lead with suburban women – beating Trump 65% to 34%. Kamala’s formidable lead with women is so pronounced that the phenomenon has extended to Republican women who are giving her record crossover support. We have seen endorsements from prominent Republican women including Liz Cheney and Barbara Bush (George W. Bush’s daughter). To be clear, Trump’s fascist threat to our Democracy may be the primary reason these prominent GOP women back Harris, but it still underscores the breadth of Kamala’s appeal in a polarized political environment. Early voting numbers so far already reflect an electorate dominated by women: According to statistics provided by
@ThirdWayKessler
, almost 12 million people have voted in the 7 swing states so far, with around 1.3 million more women voting than men. The gender gap is roughly 55% to 45% in favor of women.
If the demography summarized here all checks out, this could be the main reason why the DNC was hell bent to install Harris as the nominee, primaries and “democracy” be damned.
I think this is the most conflicted election coverage in my entire life. I see statements like yours above all over the place – predicting an incoming blue wave. And a few looks at my old haunts in the left leaning areas makes me realize that there indeed many people thinking this will be a blue wave – and Harris will win by a landslide. I actually see complacency on that side. Online that is. In the real world, however, here in the blue hive I live in, there have been articles all week proclaiming that the GOP voter turnout is absolutely historically high, and it is mainly voters who are newly registered. I see the blue leaning folks around me often melting down in fear. Our home has been canvassed now 6 times by GOP people – not a single visit from a Dem. When I look online at right leaning sites, I see that over and over again, nothing is being taken for granted – the message is get yourself to the polls no matter what. We now have not just internet memes but actual numbers coming in from places as disparate as Las Vegas and New York that the GOP has shown up big at the polls – and the Dems are historically lagging. I see the polling outfits that were the most reliable the last time stating Trump is ahead – all the while I see all kinds of polls I have never heard of stating the opposite. I repeatedly see the few national commenters that still have some kind of respect like Mark Halperin stating that it appears Trump will win based on both D and R internal polling. I see Harris pulling ad buys in multiple states. I see people like Nate Silver absolutely vivisect some of these oddball polls that are coming out. Yes, there are still people like Halperin and Silver who have not sold their soul. In my blue hive area – I have taken the elderly to the polls all week. Based upon what myself and my wife saw when we arrived at the polls – about 80-90 % of these registered were D – it actually is a blue hive – but repeatedly and loudly in the van back and forth – all I heard was illegal immigration, inflation and war hawking. And the majority of them stating that unfortunately they were voting for Trump. There are also numerous stories this week about groups like Muslims and Amish who are voting big and Trump this year – somehow – I think they are not included in this polling.
What I am saying is – God only knows what is going to happen on Tuesday. I am old enough to remember 1980 – when Jimmy Carter was ahead in the polls THE DAY BEFORE THE ELECTION – and was absolutely smoked in the Electoral College. This is a very close election.
What I see right now is an extremely close election – and online – one side ( D) becoming very strangely cocky and possibly complacent while in real life becoming ever more horrified daily – and I see the other side ( R) pulling out all the stops – in both online statements and real life.
Maybe the Dems could pull a Moldova. Trump would be just over the line in the final hours when suddenly the votes of 5.1 million American expats overseas would flood in and tip the election to Harris. /sarc
Kirn and Taibbi have been talking about this very scenario with a measure of seriousness.
The EC tempers this voting strategy (if there is one). Most expat voters are from blue states and would just be piling on already won numbers.
Expats aren’t all that concerned about abortion access either. We do worry about war though!! My vote was faxed in weeks ago to California but perhaps they’re all counted at once. Someone has to mark an official ballot with what is indicated on the fax. Every state has different rules regarding this, some have to be mailed.
“faxed in”?
Are there still fax machines that function? Does California election law recognize such ballots?
Perhaps you meant emailed, although that opens another can of worms.
Faxed. That is the process that California elections has directed me to.
You think that the results will be stored on floppy discs?
One doesn’t want to look foolish by making a wrong prediction (this doesn’t worry the press who will just deny they ever said it) but the theory that Trump hatred–and it is hatred– will overwhelm public state of the nation dissatisfaction is a stretch regardless of what happens. Harris says we must “turn the page” even though she and Biden are the page. None of her arguments survive a moment’s thought unless one simply feels that anyone–even this Dem nonentitiy–would be better than Trump. It’s the ultimate FUD pitch. If you could stop imaginary Hitler wouldn’t you do it?
Some of us though believe the elite reality problem is the real issue. Whatever happens we know what we hope will happen.
Speculating freely, it’s possible there’s been a late-breaking shift among women to Harris, too late for polls and coverage to detect, and leading to an EC wave, if not a popular vote wave. Such things happen.
That said, it’s hard for me to see what the trigger in the very recent past for the shift would have been. What is there about Trump that is not already priced in? Or, for that matter, Harris?
Could it possibly have been the Democrat’s insane lie about Cheney? Every suburban PMC white woman of a certain age saw themselves in Cheney and said “That’s it. I’m voting for Harris”? Could Trump’s garbage truck stunt have backfired?
My gut is it’s a misread of early voting or an attempt to maintain relevancy. Part of the Obama “surprise” was the college students were at home in 2008 not at school.
I suspect there is more a grasp for relevancy in light of the SC primary and long term declines in Team Blue in Iowa. It’s like the runner signaling safe. If the umpire isn’t watching, it might work.
> an attempt to maintain relevancy
If so, the Democrats are throwing the furniture into the fireplace to keep the house warm. Selzer has a good reputation (especially for a state pollster).
Of course, Iowa’s caucuses were devalued by the Dems, which would support your thesis (and not contradict mine).
It’s been noted that the national party has done jack in Iowa, so…it could be a case of “generic democrat” instead of nonsense about Pell grants.
The Iowa DesMoines Register Tribune poll was very relevant back before NAFTA, back when Iowa had a strong contingent of Dem union voters working in the Mississippi river valley manufacturing areas, back when Iowa was almost a swing state except for its low number of EC votes, back when Iowa sent Dem Senator Tom Harken to the Senate. So there’s that. But that was some time ago. / imo
And for the record, as a decades long Dem, I’d vote for Chuck Grassley anyday.
https://x.com/SteveKornacki/status/1853094916567495115
June: DMR poll has Trump +18 vs. Biden in Iowa
July 29: Iowa’s six-week abortion ban goes into effect with intense controversy and news coverage
September 22: DMR poll shows 59-37% opposition to new abortion law — 69% among women. Also shows Trump lead over Harris at just 47-43%
All fall: Saturation ad spending and campaigning on abortion by Dem candidates in the state’s two toss-up House races
Now: Final DMR poll has massive gen der gap pushing Harris into 47-44% lead
The cross tab has a huge swing among men over 65, but that might be it. The basic problem with abortion is men don’t have them. The men may not be priced in, and this would fit a state specific series of events especially if the GOP has taken its foot off the gas organizationally. Then there would be a host of reasons for men in that cohort switching, but there is a specific near-term series of events.
Remember one promise of the 50 state strategy was ultimately situating the party to take advantage of these potentials. They likely can’t win down ticket, but there is a reasonable narrative and shift that potentially reaches people its not priced in for.
“I see statements like yours above all over the place…”
The statement is from a Democratic professional, hateful and threatening. Truth is of absolutely no concern:
“Trump’s fascist threat to our Democracy may be the primary reason these prominent GOP women…”
I live in a blue state. I am registered as a Democrat. I have been called three times by the local Democratic Party organization to encourage my vote. I have not sent any contributions to the Democratic Party in several years. The amount of Kamala Harris and Democratic Party spamming hitting my email and the increasingly desperate pleas to send money seem contrary to notions of a blue wave coming this way.
I don’t know that you can draw any conclusions one way or the other from your experience (which mirrors mine). No matter how the race is going, it makes sense for Democrats to fundraise in blue states but not otherwise spend their time doing outreach there – better to talk to voters in swing states.
Interesting. I was with my parents last week in Tucson and they were visited three times. The first person was a retired postal worker (union). The other visits were young people in groups of two. All were clearly democrats.
I haven’t received any visits in east/central Phoenix, but I might not be home enough and the lots might be too large (1/2 to one acre) to for the canvassers to cover enough households. Very few campaign signs for the presidential race in either neighborhood. Most of the signs I see are for state/local races and propositions. Not many of those either.
I have received dozens of texts asking regarding the election on both sides. Annoying.
OTOH, How To Win The Presidency With 23 Percent Of The Popular Vote NPR.
Radiolab’s piece, The Unpopular Vote (1 hour audio with transcript), describes unsuccessful attempts to do away with the electoral college lead by former Indiana Democrat senator Birch Bayh. The first attempt was defeated by southern and small state senators, the second attempt was defeated by a coalition including liberal Democrat senators at the behest of Jewish liberals and black voter rights activists. What a strange world this is.
I hate the focus on the Electoral College (EC). The Reapportionment Act is all that needs to be revisited the provide better representation to the people and the states. It’s also a much easier lift than trying to re-work/remove the EC.
But that would require House members to dilute their power and address some logistical factors. It is also easier to go on a broadcast and whine about how unfair the EC is than to explain the history of the House and why the size is still capped based on the population from 1911.
It’s too bad American history, civics, and govt aren’t taught in American public k-12 schools anymore.
In order to get the small then colonies of Rhode Island and Delaware and Connecticut, for example, to agree to a compact with the much larger colonies of New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia, for example, each colony was guaranteed equal representation in the Electoral College so that the large colony/states could not always overrule them and their state’s interests and make them irrelevant in the pres race and in the Senate. This represents equal representation of individual states as government entities.
It is the House seats that represent some form of proportional representation of citizens.
adding: increasing the total number of House representatives does sound like a good idea.
This seems a bit false. What sources do you have for your version of the history of the Electoral College? There were no “colonies” at the time it was created, so one is curious to see what strange texts you might provide to back this alternative looking history story.
Here’s a decent history of the Electoral College in the proper context. There was no such thing as a “colony” seeking representation at this time. Further, the Electoral College was actually dreamed up to protect the slave holding states in the south because, while their combined population mostly equaled the North, many of the people there were slaves.
https://people.uncw.edu/lowery/pls101/wilson_chapter_outlines/The%20Proslavery%20Origins%20of%20the%20Electoral%20College.pdf
amen…Article the First, as it was called.
all it needs, last i looked, is to be ratified.
ie: it’s still in the “Pending” box.
make the House look more like the senate in star wars.
this has been a horse i flog for a long time.
nobody, regardless of their intentions, can “Represent” 700,000 people.
It does raise the question whether there is some maximum size to a body that is practical. Obviously there’s nothing special about 435.
Imagine thinking the Blue team gives a rats-behind about abortion after 40 years of fundraising and inaction.
Memory of a goldfish here.
I’ve seen a number of video shorts of Dem voters talking about all the wonderful things Harris will do when she wins. Minimum wage, access to healthcare, protecting reproductive rights, etc. Somewhere I have a list of all the things that Biden could have enacted, and Harris pushed for, under executive power and failed to do so. I cannot find it but I’d bet there there is a near one to one correspondence between what is being wished for and what never happened.
FWIW: I just did a quick read of a couple of articles that argue that any codification of Roe v. Wade by congress would not withstand adverse court rulings as it is deemed a matter for states and outside federal purview. According to these articles, the best that congress can do is prohibit states from criminalizing crossing state borders to obtain abortion (nice for them that can afford the trip), and allowing abortions on property subject to federal jurisdiction such as military bases and federal prisons. I suppose there are views contrary to these but my appetite for reading legal gobbledygook has for the moment been exhausted so I will leave that to others so inclined.
Does Congress Have the Constitutional Authority to Codify Roe? Bloomberg Law
Congress can’t codify Roe: Here’s what it can do The Hill
Congress can codify anything it wants to, assuming it’s willing to go to the mat in the courts to see it through. That they say “ it won’t survive” is proof they don’t even care to try.
And natch, Sen. Schumer and the Democrats green-light Republican judicial nominees all the time. So really who’s the problem here?
“Congress can codify anything it wants to”
This is the correct answer.
If they gave a damn they could have fixed the issue with legislation in the first two years of the Clinton presidency (majorities in both houses) and the first two years of the Obama administration (again majorities in both houses). The Democrats and Republicans need something to differentiate on and these cultural issues are far too useful to be resolved.
Once the election intoxication wears off….the Liz Cheney pivot will be seen as one of the most “R-word” campaign decisions in political history
What, no kind words for our future Secretary of Defense?
Mother of God.
It’s her or Hillary…
Own goal
Genocide with nuts on top or with fruits on top is still genocide.
The Duopoly’s narrative hooks, bodily rights, speech rights, and border rights, are compelling, but are all being used to obscure the consensus on genocide, which has much graver implications.
The Market State has normalized all living things as feed stocks to a capitalist vision that’s happy to burn the world for the life experiences of a dwindling number of winners. Sadly for the Western World I grew up in and have spent my adult life trying to improve, the inherent incoherence of The Market State our betters have imposed has shifted any agency to actually improve the human prospect to “autocratic” Asia. This election will not solve anything in the West as the Duopoly is fully committed to the capitalist death cult of The Market State, with Gaza and Ukraine but to manifestations of the profitability of human feed stocks.
The absolute amorality of our politics is breathtaking, depressing, and, so far, enduring. What seems to me assured from this election’s competing narratives is chaotic, opportunistic change driven by opportunistic agents who through wealth or organization can size the fragments of power left lying around by the catabolic decay of State capabilities resulting from The Market State’s monetization of Public Goods. The rest of the world is already watching in horror, and with our self conscious displays of intent in the Levant and Eastern Europe we can expect scant sympathy.
Genocide is consistent with calling abortion “health care”.
Palestinians and fetuses are disposable annoyances,
As with perpetual wars.
genocide is the attempt to erase a people – their culture, their language their memory, and their potential for a future, and their lives. That is why there is a genocide convention – a noble signal to the world that this is the modern age, where genocide cannot happen (as per human history of might makes right).
Except, apparently, if it is the good kind of genocide per the US-led Rules-Based Order (/TM>).
Genocide is NOT murder, it is NOT massive wartime deaths, it is NOT incidental big Pharma killing of thousands or hundreds of thousands (see Vioxx), and it is not abortion or perpetual war. Genocide is GENOCIDE and it is legally codified.
What the US/Israel does is not legalese genocide, it is unremitting slaughtering innocent civilians called “defense”!
Unjust war degrading the sanctity of human life.
> almost 12 million people have voted in the 7 swing states so far, with around 1.3 million more women voting than men. The gender gap is roughly 55% to 45% in favor of women.
I don’t think anybody knows what early voting means (though obviously it could he helpful to operatives allocating resources). Are we simply pulling future votes into the present? Or does the time voters vote actually affect election outcomes?
Adding, the party of the Censorship Industrial Complex and genocide has no moral standing whatever to yammer about fascism.
I wouldn’t have taken this obs seriously until 12 hours ago, but I’ve looked at Iowa Poll since then and that’s making me wonder: Iowa Poll is the outfit least likely to make stupid mistakes that we’d seen last few elections because of their regional specialization. But what they found in Iowa has national implications–huge gender gap driving Harris. There’s something there, and I wonder who missed what ,(somebody–or everybody–sure did.)
I am not sure about that – this same poll on the eve of the 2022 election missed the Iowa Senate Grassley race by 12 points. That is this poll’s most recent accuracy.
You are wrong, see my earlier reply to schmoe below. The Selzer poll on the eve on the 2022 election actually was 12 points , which matched the election margin.
This is the last 2 Seltzer – Iowa polls I could find published in October and Nov 2022 –
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/iowa-poll/2022/10/15/iowa-us-senate-race-chuck-grassley-mike-franken-poll-election/69562063007/
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/iowa-poll/2022/11/05/iowa-poll-senate-race-chuck-grassley-leads-mike-franken-election/69616642007/
Basically Seltzer/Iowa stated Grassley 46 Franken 43 on October 15
And then on 11-5 – right before the election I assume – Grassley 53 Franken 41
The actual results on Election Day – Grassley 56 Franken 44
We went from 3 points in the poll in Oct to 8 points in the Nov poll to 12 points in the election – so I was wrong – it was not a 12 point miss – it was a statistical scattershot when compared to reality. They did get the winner right – he actually won by 12 points.
And here is another article about this Seltzer October poll – https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/10/18/grassley-des-moines-register-poll-franken-byler/ –
This states all the same caveats we are hearing today about what appears to be a possible outlier – and throws cold water on the conclusions – and turned out to be very correct to do so based on the election day results.
I have been doing medical statistics all of my professional career. One of the worst types of data to siphon through are things that are based on models. It is very difficult – and there is scatter all over the map. It is all based on assumptions and can very easily become garbage in – garbage out. Political election polling is all modeling all the time. You make the wrong assumptions – and you are doomed. This current Seltzer poll may be very right – at this point who knows? – Based on the track record above, I would have very severe doubts – but I am also in a career where 12 points difference to reality may literally kill someone. These political polls at this point are basically sitting around a bar and shooting the s(*t with your friends. But I have seen so many many times in my life where medical data was really screwed up because of inappropriate modeling assumptions. Thankfully, in politics, people do not die like they do in medicine when things are screwed up. When looking at statistical data so close together like this in just 2 weeks in 2022 – having a huge 12 point swing like that – does not give one confidence in the data collection of the company doing it. I can find nothing looking over the Des Moines Register that would have been a disaster for the Franken campaign to account for this. In my work in medicine – this would give me extreme pause about what I was seeing and make me demand to look at the underlying modeling assumptions.
I think I am going to heed some advice from one of the other commenters and go get a nice glass of bourbon – and just turn all of this off – we have truly entered crazyville and it is not good to focus on all this for your mental health. I feel like I am watching scatter shot in medical statistics on research that has gone very wrong. It gives me both a headache and vertigo. As Nate Silver said on his blog in the past day commenting about this very situation – “they cannot both be right” – someone is going to be very wrong on Election Day. I harken back to the dial on the NYT in 2016 – that was poised at 99% early on Election Night – and then watching it slowly and surely change as the night went on.
Cheers – I am going to go and protect the mental health of myself and my family. Arguing about polling is like arguing about angels on a pin head.
The only polling I’m really interested in is the exit polling, which no MSM or polling outfit does anymore. Can’t think why. / ;)
Exit polling methodology sucks. It’s always sucked. The only “exit poll” that I’d trust is the real thing.
IM Doc,
You are as usual correct. I am always grateful for your care and thoughtfulness.
“And then on 11-5 – right before the election I assume – Grassley 53 Franken 41 […] 8 points in the Nov poll”
It’s been a while since I’ve taken an arithmetic class, but my calculator says 53 minus 41 is 12.
Now please explain to everyone what happened in that intervening 2 weeks to make that kind of difference.
My guess is it had something to do with juicing the fundraising – and nothing whatever to do with reality.
When modeling is involved there is almost always agendas involved as well.
I thought it was clearly explained in the article you linked:
“But independent likely voters have now swung in favor of Grassley. He earns their support 47% to 41%. That’s a reversal from October, when independents supported Franken 46% to 35%. In July, they were nearly evenly split, with 38% backing Franken and 37% supporting Grassley. “Independents are notoriously fickle,” Selzer said. ”
Selzer’s group actually does much simpler weighting than other pollsters, just age, gender, and congressional district. That’s why its a good gut check on the others.
I don’t think either candidate has needed help on fundraising… but if that’s what you want to believe…
Au contraire, Seltzer looks to have game her own poll. Older women were oversampled and she can’t give good answers about other dodgy cross tabs, like undersampling of Rs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtFjJXftf2I&t=1001s
I hope you are enjoying your bourbon and not reading this, but if you are, I want to share that I have been utterly stunned by how bad my quantitatively “brilliant” friends are at actually interpreting quantitative data (I’m a millennial, as are they). Not just bad at it, but incredibly socially aggressive when it comes to asking very basic research questions. And I mean BASIC. Not even “why do you think those assumptions are valid” basic. Like, “what is your core question” basic. We both just stare at each other wondering how the other is so unbelievably dumb
To be fair they do know what their research question is. It’s the provenance, significance, and likely sources of error follow ups that they take as a personal attack.
They really don’t like when I categorically dismiss the idea that “is this statistically significant” counts as a “core question”
re: “When modeling is involved there is almost always agendas involved as well.”
Where, darest I suggest, agendas equals money, (?). Perhaps I’m wrong.
We know they got what they got by cutting and splicing weights–pretty much everyone does nowadays. We also have no idea what they actually did, what their raw sample looked like, how they devised their weights, on what basis–or, for that matter, what anyone else did. The only thing we can add is that, as a “local” outfit that has a pretty good history, the IP has lower chance of doing something stupid. But, one would think tbat if there was a gender gap like what tbey found, there is no good reason to expect it’s isolated in IA and there’d be some clue elsewhere, at least in the Midwest, and we don’t (quite) see it. So this is a weird mystery, at lesst professionally speaking.
She fucked with this one.
She oversampled older women who break 2-1 for Harris.
See here, she is challenged on her cross tabs, which differ GREATLY with the population, like underrepresenting Rs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtFjJXftf2I&t=1001s
Well, I’m thinking more like an old pollster that I actually am (so to speak) than about the specific predictions. Midwest is suprisingly hard place to get good polling results (I know form professional experience that Census estimates of minority populations in parts of Michigan and Minnesota are ridiculously unreliable (the 1% samples from American Communisty Survey 1 year data jump all over the place, even with the weights they provide applied–and I always wondered how the official tables don’t seem to reflect this weirdness–they have “internal weights” that they don’t share with the public…but I don’t see fluctuations/inconsistencies like that in other parts of the country. Recall that it is the Midwestern states where we saw the biggest undercounts of Trump in 2016 and 2020 and of Obama in 2012.) Still, if we had competing set of numbers, I’d trust Iowa Polls over any national pollsters, so the conundrum.
Re: “Least likely to make stupid mistakes”… Historically, yes. Before NAFTA, etc. Currently, who knows. DesMoines is now a PMC, insurance, financial center, etc hub. The rest of the state, not so much. / ;)
If this pans out, and I am not sure it will, I fully expect that Harris will ignore the women who brought her to the show until her reelection campaign. The Democrats have form in this area. Women’s reproductive rights ave always been a fundraiser and scare issue of no importance to them really. For decades they have been lots of talk, but little action or covertly throwing women’s reproductive rights out to be sure that corporate friendly, spook friendly candidate got elected or the anti abortion judge got the appointment.
And with her refusal to overturn the Senate Parliamentarian, she got rid of that pesky minimum wage increase that people wanted but that donors didn’t. But it also gave them the “we tried” stance. She is a pragmatic Democrat and If this is their only advantage, pragmatically I cannot imagine they’ll really settle things.
And here’s the thing, while I have never understood how Obama remained popular that is the only way he has escaped unscathed for his bait and switch. But Harris is no Obama. She already is more tolerated than embraced and admired. Even with the media and the intense crackdown on dissenting information women will notice that things never get corrected, and the excuses will ring hollow.
What I find interesting is the honing we’re seeing of “unseen momentum” narratives for both teams.
I’m expecting to see the Praetorian Guard seize the electoral process regardless of what actual votes may add up to, and with digital voting, who can possibly know anyway?
Form would suggest a narrative Harris win and loud Republican claims of voting fraud which the Praetorians will name “Russian interference”, and with that as casus belli seizure of the digital communications infrastructure to the extent it can. To impose… what? Everything they’re doing is working so well…
” I fully expect that Harris will ignore the women who brought her to the show ….”
No need to speculate. The woman is currently the first female VICE president of the US, and the first person of color who has served as VICE president. And the woman did NOTHING with that historic privilege over the past FOUR years, not for women, not for children, not for persons of color. Anybody who expects a change from her record of ZERO is inextricably stuck in public relations propaganda.
As I have said repeatedly to my coterie of friends (ever smaller, I fear), this is the LEAST important election of my lifetime, since no candidate has a threshold level of leadership and competence to move us forward on the host of pressing problems facing America and the world.
The would-be winner this year is not on the ballot: “None of the Above.”
I can tell you how Obama remained popular. I voted for Obama with an abundance of hope. When his policies did the opposite of everything he promised, I pointed that out. I was accused of racism vociferously and frequently. I tried countering this by citing the many black intellectuals who warned against precisely his BS, both historically and contemporaneously (who I had read, and my critics hadn’t). I am now unemployed, have lost most of my friends, and am viewed as a maybe facist for daring to cite “the fire next time” amongst the privileged and educated.
Welcome home, Comrade!
Another group I’m in called Class Unity has a few of us too!
Classunity.org!
“from X”
Sorry, but “from X” is not a proper reference. This is evidently just Democratic operative name-calling: “Trump’s fascist threat to our Democracy may be the primary reason these prominent GOP women…” These words “from X” are simply offensive.
I appreciate anyone who latest down a strong position and backs it up. If what you say becomes a reality, then in some ways this week will resolve itself smoothly. A decisive win outside the margin of error would be enough to convince a lot of people who might otherwise be open to drastic action in support of their chosen candidate.
However, as Yves and others continually remind us, none of our models of voting behavior and registration have done well lately. Also, if Trump has mobilized a lot of unlikely voters, everything will be off. And if Harris really has this kind of a ground swell behind her, and it is on a topic that is as righteously perceived as the Right to Choose is, then why hasn’t she been ahead in the polls outside of the margin of error for the entire period she’s been a candidate? It’s not like there’s any kind of social pressure or Bradley effect against abortion in the densely populated areas in the US.
I think someone is going to be very wrong on November 6.
Excellent point. The fact that Harris is a woman and that abortion is (supposedly) a woman’s issue should not be news to anyone in recent weeks or months or years.
For that matter, why is abortion an electoral issue this year, and why does it have anything to do with Harris or Trump? SCOTUS has already ruled on the issue, thanks in large part to Ginsburg’s refusal to retire from the bench during a Democratic presidency. Neither Harris nor Trump has any legislative track record on the issue AFAIK, and neither the House nor the Senate seem likely to pass national legislation legalizing abortion under present conditions. All I can think of is it’s just the Dems reflexive and opportunistic use of abortion as a wedge issue at election time, as they (and the GOP) have been doing since 1967.
On the other hand, polls have shown Harris to have the lowest support by far of any recent Dem candidate among black and latino voters. And Trump has been endorsed by muslim leaders in Michigan. And the public as a whole has expressed unhappiness about the economy.
The only outcome I’m certain of is that half the country will be unhappy.
I don’t know who is going to win and admittedly I’m not paying too close attention this election. It’s not worth the aggravation.
But anecdotally, I’m 53 female always voted Democrat. Live in MA. I was almost certainly going to vote for Jill Stein (because war). But voted for Kamala because I have an 11 year old daughter and women’s rights is important. And having a woman in office would be a powerful message to her in this crazy world (even though I know Harris, Trump, it’s all more of the same).
My partner and I are quiet at home about politics. We agree politically but don’t feel it necessary or appropriate for our daughter to see to hear this nonsense. We also don’t have TV so no news blaring 24/7 (or ever) about the election.
So I was shocked when she came home from school last week all excited about the election and eager for Kamala to win. She said her entire class wants Kamala (10 and 11 year olds). I took the opportunity to explain the political landscape, voting, etc. She was very interested. I am surprised there was not 1 kid supporting Trump (granted I’m in MA but here on Cape Cod there’s quite a bit of red conservative….).
No real point to make here. Just reporting from my tiny neck of the woods.
I am all for education, even politically relevant education, for 10 and 11 year olds. The notion that children that age could have an informed, strong position on a democratic election is beyond absurd. That is an age of conformity. Children that age want to be liked by their peers, and approved of by the adults in their life. Those who don’t fit in need support and understanding.
Those that do need to understand how little that will matter in the grand scheme of things. The political ideas they should be learning are, basically, imo, that different people have a lot of different experiences and ideas, and that they are all human beings trying to figure stuff out, and that we shouldn’t do them harm or dismiss them unless we have no other choice, because we wouldn’t want others to harm us for just trying to figure things out, and maybe getting them wrong.
” Live in MA. I was almost certainly going to vote for Jill Stein (because war). But voted for Kamala”
Throwing your vote away….
Try thinking it though like an adult. Harris takes MA no matter what. There is no threat to your daughter, but very nice bit of pathos there. If you voted for Stein you might be able to send a message to the dems (because war), instead you line up with the war parties and give the same group of psychos who are gleefully yelling about The Cheney Endorsement another reason not to give a ship.
If you’re not paying attention to the election, you wouldn’t know the terrible things Harris has done. Like not prosecuting any of the banks in CA after 2008, after they wrecked so many lives.. Like not prosecuting the child-molesting priests. But eagerly prosecuting and jailing the parents of impoverished, black children (for their children’s truancy), and gloating and giggling at the Commonwealth Club about how she had sent her meanest cops to do that.
She also was all in on the warmongering as VP, of course, and the declaration that covid was over. Lots of deaths incoming.
Harris is a sadist. She is a horrible example. Having a vagina does not make a person a good person.
Not paying attention to the election (meaning avoiding the news cycle nonsense) doesn’t mean I’m not aware of the issues, stands and reputations of the candidates. Our (US) political system is broken, no doubt. There are many ways to look at the situation and to come up with a decision on how to proceed. I could have not voted to send a message for example. I went with my best gut instinct given the situation. Appreciate the counter insights, though. We live in tough times.
Gut instinct, that’s all you have to say.
Any sort of rational decision needs to start with “I live in MA, polls show Harris +20, at least”
Why throw your vote away? “because war”
You do what you do. The paternalistic condescension out of the dems this election is enough for me to consider other alternatives, especially from the people like you, who are safe in blue states where their vote might make a difference and there is no risk.
Agree.
The 2nd Roe v Wade was overturned, I told my wife that the future is over for the GOP.
That issue single handedly destroyed any chance the GOP had among young voters, and, obviously, women. About the absolute stupidest blunder in politics this century: antagonize half the population and 95% of those under 45 for what? To appease a dying religious conservative population?
And the craziest thing was the insane identity politics of the left had actually disenfranchised a lot of young voters who craved for normalcy in the psycho economic dystopia of post college life in 2024. There was actually a sizable amount that I think wouldve voted for Trump – until this absolute idiocy that basically unveiled the avg GOP voter as being maybe even dumber than the crazed liberal.
The genius part — Rope-a-dope, perhaps? — was the Democrats doing nothing about Roe for a generation, passing judges up the ladder of the judiciary system despite their known opposition to it, having major Presidential candidates take the position — as feminist icon Hillary Clinton did — that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare” [italics mine], defending anti-Roe zealots in purple states, massively fund-raising off the issue for decades, And all the while claiming moral superiority*. Then, when all their fecklessness yielded the inevitable result, they fired the blame cannons at the Republicans, making their own failures and complicity a winning election issue [bangs head on desk].
Truly, this is the stupidest timeline. I live in hope that it is not, and I’m not always disappointed. Nevertheless.
NOTE * Self-reflection being maladaptive in the Democrat Party, and indeed, the PMC generally.
Re: abortion and Conservatives..
It’s now up to each individual states. Here in Florida the legislature first passed what I thought was a reasonable law : abortion up to 15 weeks…
Then they went too far IMO and passed a 6 week limit. There is currently an amendment to FL constitution that ALLOWS ABORTION WITH NO TIME LIMITS….. I voted FOR the amendment, I also voted for Trump….
> It’s now up to each individual states.
And given the balance of power in the legislative branch for the forseeable future, that’s probably a good thing (I’m assuming no landslide on Tuesday, of course). The states that want to legalize it can do so.
The whole issue that the Democrats relied on the Supreme Court decision only, which in my view speaks to the PMC near-worship of professional expertise. They never made the effort to persuade the whole country, and it doesn’t matter to me that they are now, after a generation, belatedly trying to do so.
you’re going to ruin what’s probably a perfectly good desk. Trying throwing a sandal or shoe at the wall better.
Clinton also embraced abstinence education (although she did try to waffle that soon after) and picked an anti abortion running mate. It wasn’t quite as edifying as Pelosi both fundraising and campaigning for anti abortion Henry Cuellar in a primary against Jessica Cisneros* right after Dobbs, but still very clearly women’s reproductive rights were and are not in the top tier of the priorities for Democratic Party.
*This is also sardonically humorous considering Pelosi embraced the special place in hell meme in 2016.
I don’t know if roadside signs mean anything, but after 3 weeks on the road, we saw maybe 6 small Harris/Walz signs, that’s it.
Trump won the big sign contest with 6 large signs of the electric variety, and perhaps 200 of the smaller type.
Honestly, as we approached Vegas, the majority of the signs were for local contests, which vastly outnumbered Presidential aspirants.
yeah.
many trump signs…but mostly just updated ones that have been there for years.
and one(1)” harris/waltz(obviously” sign, just south of the square.
2 prominent and absolutely not hidden game cameras pointing at it,lol.
i might actually spend $2 on the local paper/brochure a week after The Day, so as to see what the results are.
tuesday will be the first actually cold night of the year, too(42 degrees, windy)…so im not likely to be outside to have my ear cocked for distant screams and wailing.
nor will i be watching the several distant hillforts i can see from my place where i suspect some of our local Dems reside…for to observe a heavens gate thing in real time.
hearsay/gossip after the fact will hafta do…although i will be certain that the scanner is on.
I live small town adjacent. I am active in my community because I value the social health of my community. I do not wear my politics on my sleeve and am wary of those who do.
Maybe team blue is more circumspect and generally less committed to the culture wars.
yeah. benefit of the doubt, and all…but that certainly doesnt describe the majority of team blue i know out here.
its like they try to be caricatures of the worst mythical aspects of PMC/Blue Check.
(the same could be said of the more numerous(but still a minority) Team Red people out here…caricatures and cartoons of GOP true believers, with red white and blue tophats)
of course, the vast majority of people out here are rather apolitical…leaning small-c conservative, but not heavily invested in the political world(too much to do in the real world).
and, like you allude to, one rarely hears political talk in the produce aisle or the feedstore….keeping the peace is the order of the day(and whispering to each other about who’s having an affair, etc)…i attribute this last to the lingering effects, ingrained in generational memory, of the Hoodoo War that set brothers against each other.
this is a strange place, i guess…isolated, 40 miles from next towns(days ride, horseback)…internet didnt arrive until 2000, cable just a few years before that…radio and broadcast tv deadzone, etc.
I live in Silicon Valley and in prior years there were plenty of Biden and Obama and Black Lives Matter signs. But presently there are almost no Harris/Walz signs (but lots of local election signs).
I doubt that signs are an indicator of anything. Many people will not put up signs (or bumper stickers) for fear of backlash in this highly polarized environment. Putting this aside, this election will likely turn out to be a nothingburger. Both Trump and Harris will be under the control of the Deep State, so little or nothing will fundamentally change. Trump’s talk of tariffing the heck out of China will prove to be mostly hot air as it becomes obvious the damage such tariffs will do to the American economy. Harris will do nothing to help out the non-elite. Joy doesn’t pay the bills. Israel will continue to run wild committing war crimes with the essential aid of the American government regardless of who occupies the Oval Office. The new boss will be the same as the old boss. The American people have been well trained to conform, rather than think for themselves, so I don’t expect much in the way of protests regarding the election outcome. If Trump loses we may all get tired of hearing the word “rigged”, but that will be the extent of things. For the Democrats, the Russians will always be coming. That’s all they have.
I’m seeing a tie between Harris & Trump signs in my neck of the woods down in Bucktown aka Jefferson Parish, LA.
Kinda shocked to see not as many Trump signs as I used to!
I imagine this neighborhood prolly benefited from Cheney embracing Harris and the Warmongers Uniting.
Lol, this came over the transom:
Honored by a Democrat drive-by, to be sure.
give y’all’s ITcyberthreat people extra pie this week.
thats a sign that theyve taken an interest in you.
take appropriate measures.
i expect a big crackdown/red scare soon after the election…nomatter who wins.
so this may be fishing for ammo.
all that said, fuck the police…and then eat the rich.
…and then eat the rich.
Tenderize them first. Give their love back. Ineverse Kobe beef technique. /s
jah,marinate them in cocacola…as one would do with squirrels.
apologies for lack of proper citation, I couldn’t remember or find the link, so thank you for supplying same. intro sentence was just something i scraped off X and didn’t think about it at all. it’s from Nils Gilman, a very good follow with a book out “Children of a Modest Star” and deputy editor of Noem mag. I’ll do better next time….
Those of you who live in Italy:
I recommend today’s (domenica, 3 novembre) Fatto Quotidiano highly for the “conversation” on the results of the U.S. elections and the effects (merdosi) on Italy. Hop over to your local edicola for a paper copy.
For those who don’t live in Italy — observations about the election for you >>
Now: I will admit that FQ is a muckraking paper (currently breaking the “we spy on everyone story” about the private data service gone wild). It doesn’t have the reach of the good gray Corriere della Sera, the favored paper of Milanese respectability. FQ certainly isn’t like La Stampa, the mouthpiece of the alta borghesia of Piemonte. (With curiously excellent local coverage, though – the news room for local stories must be on another planet.)
That admitted, FQ has been softening up its readership for a week or two. It predicts today a loss by Harris: 49.6 percent Trump, 48.2 percent Harris.
The Italian commentators are not as familiar to a U.S. readership. There is a tart comment from Jeffrey Sachs, who starts out by saying, “Both candidates are plain bad for Europe. The key for Europe is to wake up and save itself from American idiocy.” There’s some panic-addled maundering from Michael Walzer.
The headlines of the eight pieces, as I translate them:
Being a contrarian: For us Europeans, unpresentable Trump is better. (Clarifying, as Lambert Strether sez.)
Hot wars: For Ukraine and Iran, the U.S. of A. decides.
Vassalage: Both of them will exploit NATO.
What difference?: Their positions are almost identical.
The catastrophe of war: Both of them are willing to sacrifice us.
Damages to Italy: Trump will impose the 2 percent increase in arms spending.
Vile: Europeans have to get themselves out of this quickly (Sachs).
Worrying: The tycoon is hostile to the West (poor Walzer).
Subscriber only (FQ is awfully cagey):
https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/in-edicola/articoli/2024/11/03/trump-o-harris-per-l-italia-e-lue-poco-cambia/7753214/
I just wanted to send this along in case your friends start saying, But, but, our satrapies support everything we do!
Yesterday, I went to my favorite piola for lunch. The autumnal dessert, chestnut pudding, is back on the menu.
To all, I say: Passate il budino di marroni.
“There’s some panic-addled maundering from Michael Walzer.”
Heh! Walzer is certifiably brilliant but the cognitive dissonance, it burns, eventually. Even at the Institute for Advanced Study.
YUM!
I wanted to contrast the FQ take with that of the typical, lets call it “liberal” if you wish MSM outlet taking here El Pais published in Spain. Instead of the “it’s nearly the same for Italy or the EU” take on the FQ, El País goes “momentous”: Most important elections ever for the US and for the ROW. Next Tuesday, we are said, our future will be decided in a decisive way. This, let’s say, deterministic approach, does not have any merit as if history is written solely in few events and places and nothing in the world can alter the roadmap painted there. So El Pais, owned by investors with bases in places like Delaware, is sending the next message to the public in Spain : “You know pal, the US is the greatest power ever and your destinies are decided there”. Due vassal obedience will be asked every time.
That is why I quité reading el País.
In my too brief trip to Italy I never had a bad meal or a less than quite tasty quick bite to eat. Those experiences along with the Caravaggio’s, and a violin solo (a Russian woman playing Bach) in Dante’s chapel are among my fondest recollections.
Buon appetito! :-)
Is the chesnut pudding taken with whip cream or not?
Kouros: You have your priorities in order!
No whipped cream. A sprinkling of crushed pistachios, which in Piedmont, not the land of pistachios, is rather showy. Plus some swirls of a chestnut sirup.
I can see the sirup, but the pistachios, is like having white chocolate with dark chocolate together, no balance…
“What did not happen in the Budget”
The guys at The Duran have many unkind things to say about Starmer’s budget and put it into historical context-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AktOTCoqeWU (30:27 mins)
And they are right. We are living in a world that has gone completely mad. In this country the budget shows that this government of Zionist shills has no strategy, no policies which will do anything other than accelerate decline.
It is the worst, most thought-free budget in my lifetime. No industrial policy, pensioners take a hit, another attack on the principle of a universal welfare state, and no plans to correct all the problems of poorly maintained schools and hospitals left by the Tories, no attempt to declare the water companies insolvent and take over their assets, get them working effectively, and prosecute their directors and senior managers for fraud – just further privatisation of the NHS.
And the mad attacks on family farms, which will only lead to private equity and the Big Ag corporates taking them over. The only people with vision were kicked out of the Tories by Johnson and Starmer did the same for Labour. Our people are in a world of pain and we just throw money and resources into a war that’s already been lost in the Ukraine, and it has become a crime to call a genocide a genocide.
Detecting the slightest glimmer of rational political and economic thought has become an impossibility. It’s a sad world when Donald Trump is the UK’s only hope of putting at least some of the things the state is fully complicit in to rights.
“attack on family farms” Big Ag will be the death of us. No matter how I game this out, the answer is a lot more people farming locally and organically. Policywise, it’s the easiest win imaginable. There are so many ways to make this work with basically only winners and no losers worth worrying about.
People farming locally is what made Eastern Europe survive the hell of 1990s. Post WWII there was a big push towards industrialization and urbanization, but the connnection to the countryside was never fully lost.
About that Seltzer poll, note that Seltzer’s Oct 2022 IA Senate poll was wildly inaccurate – off by 9%”
“A new Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll shows Grassley leads with 46% of the vote to Franken’s 43% among likely voters.” Grassley won by 12.2%..
Outlier as this is, its gender gap bodes ill for Trump and if Trump losses Dobbs might be viewed as the deciding factor.
Ok but the November 2022 poll showed Grassley up by 12 due to late breaking independents…
I live in Iowa and this excuse just reeks of “clutching at straws”
The “new improved” polling for Harris is a last minute attempt to drive Dem turnout. The newest polls came out showing the two Republican candidates catching up with the Dems in NV and AZ. Senator Kari Lake? LOL!
If they can get a few more Dems to the polls they might be able to salvage a couple senate or House seats. The polls showing Harris pulling ahead are for Dem consumption only. None of them have her above 50% so that they can say “within the MOE.”
It’s all psychological at this point.
This.
No Democrat has won statewide in Iowa since Obomber in 2012 (and his vote share had declined from ‘08). Iowa’s governor, both US Senators and 4 US Representatives are all Republicans. The Iowa Democrats were neutered and subsequently destroyed by the national party with assist from the 2020 Caucus app.
A large part of the reason Democrats have no power base here is the history of the IDP replacing the popular choice of primary voters with their own PMC candidates, who have zero constituency and no appeal to their own base on voters in-state. Sanders won the caucuses twice but was kneecapped by the national party in favor of candidates with no connection to Democrat voters. It simply defies common sense that an empty suit could win a presidential race in Iowa in this climate and with no Democrat infrastructure.
Iowa Ds differ from Rs on Abortion, Education, and LGBTQ. They are a minor element of the Big Ag Uniparty. Iowa Ds genuflect at the mention of ethanol, even those who sport environmental talking points. Water quality is of monumental impact, but muted in discourse. Among journalists, the Cedar Rapids Gazette (east Iowa) and Art Cullen (west Iowa) keep plugging for clean water. The U of Iowa will present from time-to-time research documenting fertilizer pollution. Iowa State is captive to Big Ag; several faculty know better, but want to keep their jobs–and Big Ag grant money.
Iowa Ds are a political potemkin.
This is a good metaphor for the national party as well. The Iowa Democrats are just ahead of the curve.
Correct and then we will all be shocked to experience another 40 years of DNC inaction on abortion.
Sorry to be replying to my earlier posting, but I just saw this from the Taniel twitter account and it could explain IA’s wider gender disparity:
“Iowa had abortion protected by its state courts. Then, just *days* before Dobbs, the Iowa’s state supreme court struck that right down.
The GOP passed a 6-week abortion ban. It was upheld by the state supreme court this summer.
This is the first election since that ruling.”
Could explain why IA gender gap, if it does exist on that scale, seems different from other states… Timing certainly fits.
Netanyahu spy scandal link doesn’t work, here’s a link to another story about this.
Thanks
A further interesting detail is the symbolism of Nvidia replacing Intel in the Dow Jones Industrials, starting November 8.
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/nvidia-to-replace-intel-in-dow-jones-industrial-average-intels-25-year-reign-has-come-to-an-end
https://hothardware.com/news/nvidia-supplants-intel-in-the-dow
I can’t decide if Caitlin has lost it, like I have, or…
How To Go On In A World Full Of Cruelty
or what?
I choose losing it. Beauty in the smoke from burning Gaza? Beauty in dead whales full of plastic? Really? I do try to console myself with beauty when the world is too much. It tends to be the natural world that calms me most. But it is also Lambert’s helper stories and other stories of human beings being good to each other that get me through the day. A friend was part of a group of friends who got together and pitched in to help another friend pay for her divorce because she didn’t have the lawyer’s fees. That’s more beautiful to me than anything on Caitlyn’s list. I often find Caitlyn to be right if a a little too strident to share with others. Not today.
I didn’t express myself very well, I think she’s cracked up. She’s expressing some beauty that the ghouls must imagine when they commit their acts that we witness on our screens everyday. I am reduced to a puddle, but she is made of something sterner than I. I hope both of us recover but I’m not sure about myself. I have really lost it.
Everywhere I go, I see Gaza, and its people, the dead and the barely living.
This is happening to me too. I’ve been having a hard time operating while haunted, the result being I never want to leave the cat ranch.
Log off. There is no reason to torture yourself consuming snuff films and snuff reporting.
I know I’ll get flack for saying this but you’re really just trauma programming yourself by willingly consuming this media. You do not carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. You don’t need to be a witness to this.
The Empire is spasming as it dies, and this is the result. It will come to an end soon. Until then, don’t psyop yourself into a submissive rat dystopia state.
PKD was right when he saw the Roman Empire overlayed with our own, and it drove him mad. Valis will arrive shortly. Until then, do not give into the Pink Light.
“i just don’t like the gravy”, I will not get flack from me. To Alice X, mrsyk, and others your own health comes first and foremost.
I found Auden’s line from the poem ‘Musee des Beaux Artes” about the way that life goes on, unheeding of atrocities, floating into my mind this morning:
“…and the torturer’s horse scratches its innocent behind against a tree.”
As human beings conscious of our common humanity, it’s hard to feel so innocent, but in some circumstances, we may have a different consciousness but no more agency than the horse.
PKD? Philip K Dick?
Some level of witnessing IS required. Otherwise how will you remember not to buy any Israeli product, or not vote for any public official at any level that asks for your vote and stands strong with Israel…?
Alice X
same here. Gaza permeates everything.
I think that this is her coping mechanism. You can’t daily watch videos of Israeli atrocities while surrounded by political leaders and the main stream media saying that Israel has a right to defend itself without having the cognitive dissonance constantly smacking you in the face. If this is her way of coping then so be it.
“There is immense beauty even in the most murderous empire managers.” Caitlin lost me there.
It sounds to me like she has given up.
Perhaps she means sublimity, according to Edmund Burke: terrible and awesome.
Caitlin lost me a couple of years ago when she claimed the Russian SMO into Ukraine was unjustified.
I suppose one of the down sides of the internet is the speed with which some posters feel a time-pressured to respond without much time to think or consider the various arguments. / my two cents
She didn’t get the memo. Everyone was saying that it was unprovoked.
I am beyond despair over Gaza. For the first time in my life, I will not be voting in a presidential election and the reason is Gaza. I cannot vote for genocide. No, never. There is no beauty to be found there. None. It is pure evil, being committed openly and gleefully with the “ironclad support” of the United States. Gaza turns my stomach into knots, keeps me awake at night and haunts me daily.
As a terminally ill poor person, I have been told I need to vote Democratic (again) because Republicans hate the poor. I have been told it is in my best interest to Vote Blue No Matter Who. But I have realized (it was a lesson that took me years to learn), Democrats hate the poor every bit as much as Republicans do. Poor and sick, I am not ‘safe’ with either Party. And since both Parties are the Party of Genocide, neither will get my measly little vote.
Something that is keeping me going: After the passing of my beloved 15 year old cat last month, I adopted a young rescue kitty a few days ago. She is so sweet and full of love and life, she gives me a reason to continue to get up in the morning. In this tiny feline, I can see beauty again.
It is good to hear from you again. I was concerned because you have not shared recently. I hope this beauty you have found surrounds you for the rest of your days.
Hear, hear (chin, chin for you Brits)
Love to you, Lena, and your new furry friend.
Lena, it is good to hear from you. And as your newly rescued friend is making your life better, you are making her life better. It is good to feel that there is still a part of this sad world that is within one’s power to make better.
The power of A Small, Good Thing fills immensity.
“In this tiny feline, I can see beauty again.”
You are beautiful to me.
I’m not American but if I were, yes, this would be the showstopper for me as well. It’s a matter of conscience, of ethics, of morality, and politics is supposed to be applied ethics. I cannot fathom why people don’t see this. My family says I should “try to look at the bigger picture” but I don’t see how it can get any bigger picture than the world tomorrow accepting genocide as the new normal. I’m with you on this.
“It’s a matter of conscience, of ethics, of morality…”
Really compelling comment.
Well . . . the world accepted genocide during the Interahamwe Holocaust of the Tutsis. And the world is accepting genocide as the new normal during the ongoing RSF genocide in Darfur.
So it looks like that bar has already long since been slithered under.
….she gives me a reason to continue to get up in the morning. In this tiny feline, I can see beauty again. Yes, triple yes, our three provide us “a reason” as well. Peace and love to you.
Hi Lena, this is the other Lina….
Pets are the antidote to the crazy world. Glad you got a kitty. My family is looking forward to welcoming a new golden retriever puppy in January. They will be born/are due next week and this has kept us occupied and not thinking too much about the atrocities in the world. Peace.
There is a phrase “beauty from ashes” that I’ve heard in Christian circles.
I don’t find anything beautiful in the way the human race has once again reminded us of what we’re all capable of. I choose to deal with it through parody and musical mischief. And sometimes I get angry and I feel like I want to do something to make someone pay. But I don’t act on that because I know that anger and violence is the problem, not the solution.
On a personal level sometimes we have to be broken before we can recover. Maybe this is just a reminder that as a species we are what we are – capable of both great beauty and the most unspeakable acts of evil imaginable.
We owe the rest of the animal kingdom an apology. Other beasts lack mens rea – they kill out of rage, fear, or instinct. Or they just want to eat. At least they are not aren’t capable of the scale of genocide we are.
Perhaps Caitlyn chooses to see a future when this is all history and the guilty are brought to full justice, even if that’s in another world.
I agree fellow Chris.
We have stopped donating to all catholic religious causes in protest of the US church, and the greater Catholic Community, not standing up against the genocide. Hearing a priest tell me to love my brother and then hearing the bishops argue what is going on isn’t genocide is too much.
Well, technically, they are not wrong. Comparing to all the stuff Catholic Community have been involved throughout it’s “rich history”, what is going on isn’t genocide is too much.
Did you miss how the Gaza crisis has at times driven Caitlin to despair and that it causes her to crash for hours? I don’t think she’s losing it except in that regard. She obviously feels helpless to change anything and yet she is putting out an essay daily to find ways to get her readers to wake up others to see the reality of what their tribe is doing.
I see her being brutally honest about how covering the Gaza genocide for over a year has taken a toll on her.
Maybe y’all should read the beginning again. And cut her some slack.
Absolutely thanks for that. She needs support, not judgment.
Sam
Respect. Ty
I think I understand what she’s saying, I don’t think she has lost it.
It’s in our deepest, darkest moments that we also shine the most. And those moments are formative and beautiful. So just as the holocaust formed us, so too will this genocide and we’ll learn at a huge cost – if even Americans and Israeli Jews can repeat the holocaust then there’s an important lesson here. Of course, holocaust suvivors have been trying to tell us all along.
I think she is protecting herself by withdrawing from the grim succession of events by spending time just living in the moment. It is a pain management technique I frequently have to use to deal with physical pain. I think it is probably the only way to deal with this level of psychological pain and keep on working as a journalist without falling into the pit of alcohol and drug induced isolation from despair. The snapshot of ironic acceptance is the most effective way to distance yourself for a moment or two from the sheer horror that the world has placed before us.
As one who has fallen into the pit of alcohol and drug induced isolation from despair, I agree. I think she is taking the most psychologically healthy coping mechanism. If I could simply feel sad for a few hours, then engage in work I felt was meaningful, I would do that so hard.
I think we’re all wrestling with feelings of isolation and despair. Look at this conversation, on the internet. How many of us are sitting alone, with all the people in our lives treating us like mental patients for caring, and wanting to understand. We are desperate for connection, but the madness of our societies doesn’t care.
Joseph Campbell,
” to participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world”
Isn’t this a completely realistic way to engage an insane world? One has to save oneself. We all need our own personal pressure relief valves. Whatever the pressure. it must be relieved. That which doesn’t bend; breaks.
in an insane world, only the insane are sane.
This really doesn’t mean participating… with the offenders. Just not being overwhelmed to the point of being incapacitated. IMO
another Joseph Campbell myth ” to participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world” – i prefer to stay a bit pissed off about it all – my brother sent me a clip of Dylan in 1963 singing at the March on Washington – my reply asked what ever happened to fervor that brought a demonstration like this in 1963 and today looks the other way to the genocide in Palestine – 200,000+/- is the body count when counting those missing under the rubble, mostly women and children slaughtered and dismembered – i find beauty in this world but cannot agree with Caitlin’s ‘immense beauty’ list at all – of course i don’t write every day about it as she does – but it haunts and i don’t want the disgust to be tempered at all – and we could go into the disastrous consequences faced repeatedly by the imbalance brought about by the Anthropocene – or the Hughes’ piece mentioned yesterday of the Psychological Operations, and the War for Technocracy – nope, i savor the curmudgeon shadow but subdue it towards others – it feels like sitting in a rowboat in the ocean of life – you sit facing backwards rowing forward and see clearly where you’ve been and only occasionally look over your shoulder to see where you’re going and what’s up ahead – it’s in those brief moments you hope to see the future and the pitfalls you hope to avoid – too often it seems where you’ve been is in no way helping you in where you’re going – just my 2¢
Her point, I think, is that it is a gift to behold all of this – the birth and creative flowering all around us, as well as the carnage of death and destruction. The great mystics would tell us this is the purpose of life – to simply behold it all. Kind of hard to explain. The mystics also counsel that those who say do not know, and those who know do not say. But that doesn’t make for a very interesting comments section.
” The mystics also counsel that those who say do not know, and those who know do not say.”
It is said that immediately after his enlightenment the Buddha stated that “this cannot be taught.” After which he couldn’t shut up about it. Zen promulgates what it calls “the wordless doctrine” and goes on to produce quite a large body of written works. Go figure.
“The great mystics would tell us this is the purpose of life – to simply behold it all.”
Taking this thought a bit farther, it occurs to me that for the mystics of theistic bent there is another more difficult step: they do not seek God’s forgiveness so much as offer God theirs.
You took it up a level!
I think she’s made of sterner stuff than most of us.
If one could take themselves outside of the moment while working on a Gaza story, and still see the magic of clouds at work in the black smoke, that’s probably a good thing. Both realities exist, it really is”why can’t we have both?”
And even better, the magic might not end there. We might get to see the beauty of a thousand atomic flowers blooming. Being subsumed into their magnificent radiance, embraced by their sublimating warmth or permeated by their powerful radiation. All that and the knowledge that our world will at last be at peace; o day of joy and wonders!
Caitlin is a timelessly great voice; a voice of moral truth and hopefulness. This is a prophetic voice. a voice needed t save us.
Not in her head, but perhaps it is a shiva/brahma/vishnu thing. Out of the ashes will arise a new world (shade of Gramsci). The new world only is borne from the ashes (and rivers of blood) of the old world.
The French killed most horribly 1 million Algerians for independence.
She published on 1 Nov 2024 a piece that the evidence of genocide is overwhelming. So definitely coping.
She is going full reducti ad absurdum. There is no way that she actually believes this, and is going so deep to project what she thinks the people who support this genocide has to be thinking.
No way anyone could believe that article.
Coping. Simply that. Without completely detaching from the real world. It is a very difficult process for someone of Caitlin’s sensitivity, with which I identify. Bless her.
I didn’t read the article (i can’t say i’m such a fan of Mrs? Ms? Johnstone’s style), but i think i’m getting the thrust of her message from these comments.
I’ve been stricken several times these past few years, re-engaging with the newsworthy current events after a hiatus of several years (TDS had me shut everything down except for sports news).
Mr./Ms. gravy has the right idea below/above, for sanity, to dramatically curtail the types of media consumed daily. Nothing is solved by the viewing of daily destruction, dismemberment, and dystopia – it’s voyeurism of another kind.
I do agree with the snippets that have been shared from Ms. Johnstone’s article, about finding beauty in unlikely places. I can’t put it in words just now, but there is an echo that is resonating with my own experience.
May i suggest, if you haven’t already seen it, that you set aside a couple of hours for Come and See. It captures the horror, and beauty, of human existence in a way that I’ve only seen expressed accurately in Soviet cinema.
Then again i’m not terribly well read, and certainly haven’t seen it all.
Just another AI bot spinning garbage yarns on the interwebnets.
lolz.
thanks. fixin to download/pirate that, so i can watch it without all the buffering madness.
dated, but one of my favorite films(actually 3) are wordless, with Philip Glass.
beginning with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koyaanisqatsi
made wife watch it…then, as they got older, she made the boys sit through it,lol.
and boys, while fidgeting, made it through without weed(being too young).
Tam and I got really high.
Both boys still mention it on occasion, when we’re riffing on mystical esoterica….so it had an effect.
I remember when it came to my town and I watched it on the big screen in a real movie theater.
I watched it every free night that I had, in case it would never come back again . And it never did.
Same for Powaaqatsi.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powaqqatsi
as for the gist of this thread…i didnt read Caitlin’s thing, either. I bore witness for a long while…but i cannot, for a time.
i’m avoiding both genocide, ukraine and election horse race bs.
sticking with higher level geopolitics;
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2024/11/actually-existing-postliberalism https://theupheaval.substack.com/p/the-post-cold-war-apotheosis-of-liberal
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-choice-this-election-is-between
in that order…sorry if they were already linked.
I am watching some of these videoclips, as a mental health cleansing.
https://www.youtube.com/@WildNovels/videos
Cannot do much about the genocide other than to keep my fingers crossed for Team South Africa to push through with their ICJ submissions.
She’s right.
I’d like to stop there, but I suppose a little explanation is in order. See Job 38-41, where God exults in his creation, in his love for all he has made. All. He hates injustice; that’s why he answered Job’s summons to court and submitted himself to the judgment of his creature. And Job, recognizing God’s love and the magnificence of his creation, says, because now he has seen him, he sees God is right, just, and loving and is overwhelmed.
Evil is real, yet there is a splendor in all that happens. The world we see, limited by our selves, is Maya. Fight injustice and suffering, but rejoice in what is.
This title did bring a smile to my face. The author had his jimmies so thoroughly rustled that he defaulted to high-school-level insults.
This is just the tradition that presently leads to a Nobel Prize in economics:
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/xi-jinping-china-economy-rotting-from-the-head-by-daron-acemoglu-2022-10
October 28, 2022
China’s Economy Is Rotting from the Head
By Daron Acemoglu
I always feel insulted at the embarrassingly and insultingly low intellectual level of the US propaganda Americans pay for and consume. One more piece in the puzzle as to how Mike Judge’s pre-visionary documentary, Idiocracy, comes to pass?
ISL: One more piece in the puzzle as to how Mike Judge’s pre-visionary documentary, Idiocracy, comes to pass
Comes to pass?
You’re already there, chum.
Rewatched it recently (highly recommend) and there still remains far to fall . . . But I hear you – the signs abound….
But Mike Judge did not attribute the arrival of Idiocracy to the actions of the Intellectual and Educated upper middle classses their own selves. He attributed it to a breeding lower class.
I don’t think Stephen Hadley can be considered part of the “breeding lower class” which Judge conjured up to begin his movie.
We ought to submit Stephen “Ozymandias” Hadley to Guinness World Records as one of the team of people that wrecked a world empire in record time. This guy was literally the National Security Advisor while:
The American industrial base was wrecked.
The American middle class was destroyed.
American homes, healthcare and universities became unaffordable.
Living the American Dream became just that – a dream.
This guy has been working national security since President Ford. He was literally handed an American empire created by that commie pinko leftist FDR, and he spent his whole career implementing polices and providing guidance that destroyed it.
What a [family blogging] idiot.
In fairness, he is very consistent. And after all, going to war with nuclear powers and promoting genocide has always been the kind of thing which wins you applause as well as substantial funding.
The incredible thing about that article is that he has learned nothing and forgotten nothing. Learned nothing from his party’s wars in the middle east and eastern Europe, forgotten nothing of the propaganda his party has generated about how weak all of America’s enemies are.
Needs to be read alongside that article about the decline in competence of the US military’s strategists since the second world war.
A lack of any sense of reality is one of the authentic charms the US foreign policy élite inherited from the English.
“BALKAN BLOG: What went wrong for the EU in Georgia’s and Moldova’s elections?”
I think that it is simply people in those countries have been watching how the EU in Brussels have been treating member nations. They see member nations like Hungary and Poland punished for disagreeing with Brussels dictates, owed money illegally held back from them, how they have to give up not a small measure of their sovereignty but all of their sovereignty. The people in those countries see how their own countries are threatened for not falling into line when they are not even members yet. With the EU acting like a mafia organization, they are probably thinking that BRICS sounds like a better bet right now. And if there was an EU-wide vote by all the people living there to revert the EU to what it as before Maastricht, how many would vote yes?
“What went wrong for the EU in Georgia’s and Moldova’s elections?”
What went wrong for the literally authoritarian European Union leadership, was that there were actual elections. Obviously, the German leadership of the EU only wants control.
I am stereotyping, because the likes of Ursula von der Leyen are consciously stereotypes.
Another Boeing 737 incident:
https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/ryanair-make-emergency-landing-dublin-34011307
It seems to have been a 737-8, not sure if Max:
https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/ei-ebd
You know, I am very glad that I have basically quit flying….
According to Planespotters it’s a 15 year old 737-800:
EI-EBD Ryanair Boeing 737-800 https://www.planespotters.net/airframe/boeing-737-800-ei-ebd-ryanair/3v45pk
If it’s Ryanair I ain’t going. Ryanair should be permanently grounded. Cheapskates don’t make for good airlines.
It’s the latest in budget air travel. Oxygen can be purchased as needed. Frequent flyers get a discount book for an add’l 4 liters during the flight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-utWgNCaKU
> Khaosmotic Epistemology: A Transdisciplinary Metatheory of Contemporary Legal Complexity? SSRN
>> La théorie pragmatique se concentre sur l’adaptation des normes aux réalités contextuelles.
I absolutely disagree with this!
but then I don’t read French…
From Google translator: ” Pragmatic theory focuses on the adaptation of norms to contextual realities.”
Even the obvious sounds elegant in French.
Never let pragmatic practice get in the way of the theory.
And in French, the intellectuals can BS like there is no tomorrow….
Francophone here
is that why ive had such difficulty with english translations of french philosophy?
cut my philosophy teeth on translations of german philosophers, so i guess i’m used to all that….esp. the crazy compound words(i prefer the king james version of Nietzsche)
but man…the translations ive happened upon of folks like Foucault, Merlieu-Ponty(sp-2), etc were almost incomprehensible.
(all of this was obtained pre-internet, and on limited book budget, so its not like i could investigate or pick and choose.)
yep
so im not the only one to encounter this?
im good with european languages that begin with proto latin, proto greek or proto germanic.
i can pick thru a catalan newspaper,etc.
slavic gives me hives.
chinese may as well be martian
I am a duolingo junkie. So I have waded into the west and east Slavic languages (I already had a passing acquaintance with Slovene and Serbo-Croat) and I am almost shocked at how similar the Slavic languages are to both English and the Romance languages (English more for word order). Perhaps the hives come from the orthographies? Polish orthography is formidable (how many ways can one spell “sh?”) And all the non-Cyrillic languages abound in diacritics. So perhaps seeing “un accent aigu” over a consonant is disconcerting?
Here’s a fix for language junkies. :)
Those hives (that he is given), in Slavic languages are named after the stinging nettle plant. The plant is kopriva (or something similar), and skin condition is koprívnica/koprivnjača (or something similar).
In Latin the plant is urtica, and skin condition is urticaria.
I say, hives should be renamed to nettleism.
P.S. Your name reminded me of an old Yugoslav movie Kad budem mrtav i beo, that has a main character named Džimi Barka.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_I_Am_Dead_and_Gone
Foreign Affairs
‘Others foresee not World War III but a slew of separate conflicts scattered around the globe. Either way, the result is a world at war—the situation is that serious.’
‘demonstrating to China that tethering itself to a bunch of losers’
How does one “foresee” what already is visible, exists and has been the norm for 30 years?
Why does Foreign Affairs use the same terminology that Trump applies to our service members who have been killed, captured or injured during the many separate conflicts inspired by USA – ‘bunch of losers’
I saw the article was written by Stephen Hadley. These neocons never, *ever* die. They just keep popping up like whac-a-moles whenever you think you might be rid of one.
I checked out Hadley’s Wikipedia bio just to see which swampy institutions have been supporting him until he can get back into a Republican administration. Not surprisingly, he is well-ensconced in the bipartisan National Security blobosphere. For quite a while after the Bush years he was housed at the United States Institute for Peace, which is actually an official government hybrid warfare office that works with “non-governmental” organizations – to promote “peace” and “democracy,” of course. He then went on to do something unheard of – he formed a “strategic consulting firm” with Condi Rice and Robert Gates. Who would have thought of that in DC? Here is just a fragment of his other affiliations:
“Hadley is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations… He has been a member of the Defense Policy Board, the Foreign Affairs Policy Board, the National Security Advisory Panel to the Director of Central Intelligence, and the Board of Trustees of Analytical Services (“ANSER”).”
“Hadley is also an Executive Vice Chair on the Board of Directors at the Atlantic Council… and is on the Board of Directors at defense contractor Raytheon…”
Swamp monster in the official Swamp publication. One doesn’t really even have to read the article. Unfortunately, I did. I was right.
The question yet to be posed to these neo-cons, you and what army? I really don’t think the American one, and those of its vassals, are up to the job.
I think it may have been JD Vance on Tim Dillon’s show that accurately assessed America’s inability to consummate the perverse wishes of the flaccid old men and women of the Blob/Swamp/Establishment. Prior to hearing this honesty I had thought the only moral option on Tuesday was Dr.Stein. Then I looked at my children and realized if I ever wanted to meet my grandkids then Vance has my vote. He may not like the members of Hadley’s “Axis” but knows there is nothing we can do about it. That’s the peace candidate.
Senator Vance has said many things with which I agree or with which I sympathize, but honesty does not appear to be his strongest suit. If he were really for common American folk, would Peter Thiel give him money?
One might point out that both WW1 and WW2 were many conflicts among many factions aroubd the world linked together by the same big combatants…
‘Nate Bear
@NateB_Panic
This is the entrance ramp to an underground shopping centre car park with thousands of parking spaces. Rescuers have yet to dive down. This just gets more nightmarish’
No sense even trying. Visibility would be zero and all the tumbled cars would just be a death trap waiting for an unlucky diver. Better to just pump the water out of the whole car park over a coupla days and then send in teams to see if there are any bodies there. Why lose even more people at this point?
More on that flooded car park story-
https://news.sky.com/story/spanish-authorities-search-flooded-underground-car-park-fearing-how-many-bodies-they-will-find-13247803
Is this the correct link for the Netanyahu spy scandal piece? I couldn’t get the posted one to work, sorry.
If your country’s fate depends on the political machinations of foreigners…
Taibbi’s latest no paywall.
People Aren’t Garbage. Partisan Politics Is
Voting says very little about who we are, but propaganda telling us otherwise reveals a lot about America’s political leaders
https://www.racket.news/p/people-arent-garbage-partisan-politics
Re: Space Race
I hoped the article would discuss mutual protection against incoming asteroids, but no. It’s all about exploiting the resources of space.
I was disappointed how it pushed the Artemis Accords which the US State Department originally drew up. The majority of countries that signed up for it don’t even have a space capability and I’m not sure what they think that they will get out of it. Not much I bet. They say that this is an extension of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty but if so, why was the UN bypassed and it not agreed upon at the UN. Trying to get a fait accompli? This is like when Obama was pushing for the TPP and saying that it would be America writing the rules of trade in the Pacific but which was in fact the corporations writing the rules. I think that the intention is the same for the Artemis Accords – to have corporations draw up the rules for the use of space which will be all about them having monopoly profits.
‘Mutual protection against incoming asteroids’ and ‘exploiting the resources of space’ would both depend upon the identical technologies needed to (a) get there and (b) be able to move asteroids around. Wouldn’t they?
True, though it somehow fits that the Earth could get smoked by an incoming asteroid whilst Weyland-Yutani is out there busy trying to strip mine Ceres.
“I am a thirty-five year national security expert!”
Yeah, nah on both counts.
As Trump said 8 yrs ago to Hillary in one of his better retorts – “Yes, you have experience. The wrong kind of experience.”
> A thirty-five year national security expert
I believe Weber would call the antagonist an ideal type. So the Harris platform of genocide + Roe works well for her, and no doubt for many who are like her, or would wish to be.
And I love the pink outfit. If Trump wins, perhaps she’ll wear it on the march.
NOTE 35 years ago would be 1989, when we invaded Panama (“Operation Just Cause”). IIRC, that was the end of Vietnam Syndrome. So they were “present at the creation,” as it were, at an ideal vantage point to witness our unbroken record of success.
I thought the victory over Cuban construction workers on Grenada was the elixir for Vietnam Syndrome.
She lost me at “lifelong stutterer.” I was a lifelong avid Dem and the first I ever heard that “fact” trotted out was when Biden’s senility was getting too evident for the news media.
MOA
“Ukraine never had a chance to win a contest with Russia. The correlation of forces where never in favor of Ukraine. It had neither the men, money or industry to win the war. Nor did the West ever intended to provide those. The U.S. aim was and is to weaken Russia, not to defeat it. That would be too dangerous (think nukes).”
Yes those geniuses in the Biden admin were trying to outfox Putin and, given the current body count, don’t seem to have cared much at all about the Ukrainian people. You could call them Mayberry Machiavellis but Barney Fife probably smarter.
Luckily the same crew aren’t running the Kremlin which gives hope that the tragedy may resolve short of WW3. It’s true that Biden has said he doesn’t want world war but then what is he doing? It’s all so very clueless.
It’s overlooked, but Biden is always learning on the job, the basics not nuance. He’s a lifelong ignoramus in a sea of ignoramuses (see the Axis of losers article). Occasionally, reality is made apparent. The Pentagon surely had to give briefings explaining how airplanes ran on fuel when they shot down the no fly zone nonsense.
The idea was weakening the Russian oligarchs would lead the oligarchs to overthrow Putin. Biden’s prism on the world is limited, so he can only see Russia through his first impressions and his own subservience to wealth and can’t conceive weakening Russian oligarchs would make them too weak.
Biden doesn’t want WW3, but he’s very much in the troops will be home by Xmas mindset.
NotTimothyGeithner: …he can only see Russia through his first impressions and his own subservience to wealth.
Not only through the lens of his subservience to wealth, but also his and his family’s personal financial involvement with a corrupt Ukraine oligarchical regime so as to carve off more personal wealth for themselves.
It doesn’t get pointed out enough. But Biden is not only an ignoramus, as you note, as well as a warmonger and a wannabe bully, which is frequently commented on, too.
He is also one of the most personally corrupt politicians to achieve the office of the US presidency.
“Never underestimate Joe’s ability to f*ck things up” – Barack Obama
That, too.
And yet, Biden was Obama’s choice over and against Sanders. So Obama thought it was “worth it”.
Sanders became Senator in 2006, and well, he’s not a Democrat. If Team Blue was an actual political party, there isn’t a chance in he’ll he would have any seniority.
As far as Biden, I felt tge expectation was that it was a placeholder for the people worried about how “clean” Obama was. Then with Hillarys actual standing in the primary, Obama really needed someone grandfathered in. A Boxer type (besides Obama’s distaste for women) would only invite complaints from the future “omg russia” types who voted for McCain for Mother.
Obama gave the person who had been collecting war hawks, the State Department; the person the New York Times wrote about as “Hillary the Hawk.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/06/opinion/sunday/are-neocons-getting-ready-to-ally-with-hillary-clinton.html
July 5, 2014
The Next Act of the Neocons
Are Neocons Getting Ready to Ally With Hillary Clinton?
By JACOB HEILBRUNN
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/magazine/how-hillary-clinton-became-a-hawk.html
April 23, 2016
How Hillary Clinton Became a Hawk
Throughout her career she has displayed instincts on foreign policy
that are more aggressive than those of President Obama — and most Democrats.
By MARK LANDLER
“Biden was Obama’s choice over and against Sanders.”
As with the choice of Hillary Clinton at State, accompanied of course by Victoria Nuland, Obama may have been of different temperament than was supposed… Obama sought to stop the Chinese space exploration program with the Wolf Amendment, preventing Chinese work with NASA. Also, Obama began China containment policy designed to circle China militarily and limit Chinese economic development.
re: ignoramuses – are we sure Biden knows what an “oligarch” is? (hint: not a flower)
p.s. CN last year had an article on who in the US sat on Senate Foreign Relations dealings with China – it was, well, hair-raising (hell-raising)
It’s not clueless, rather it’s all very calculated. IMO, the Ukraine front is intelligence gathering. What are Russian technologies really capable of on the battlefield and what are their tactics and military strategy. The Art of War, know thy enemy. Furthermore, any munitions used up fighting the Ukrainians aren’t being used against you.
Another “are they smart?” or “are they stupid?” conundrum. There’s nothing about Ukraine that tips the benefit of doubt balance to the “they are smart” answer. Sure, while they’re there they can and do use this as an opportunity to gather intelligence, but only in a Pee Wee Herman kind of way.
Problem is, Russia/china/nk/iran are mfg countries and can step up production, west isn’t and can’t. So west is now somewhat disarmed, and ME is further drawing down legacy stockpiles. Military war games already show we don’t want to take on Iran… china or Russia? Combined? Delusional. Best we can do is the tie where everybody is dead, otherwise just another in long stream of defeats.
People miss the importance of the collective intelligence of line workers in manufacturing in general. This is one inherent advantage we’ve now conferred to the nations to which we’ve exported manufacturing.
Watching us in our prime, they learned as well the value of primary research, something we stopped doing because there’s no controlling what thoughtful people might think about. We relocated the center of gravity of research of all kinds to The Market where petty dictatorships are reliably anti collectivist.
Finally, we crappified public education and education in general to serve the need for a malleable, complacent, or better yet conflicted population.
Having so rearranged our society, it’s very hard to see how we get back to being able to compete economically with those we choose to view as threatening us, all of whom, like us, rely on manufacturing for their strength, but unlike us can actually do it.
People miss the importance of the collective intelligence of line workers in manufacturing in general. This is one inherent advantage we’ve now conferred to the nations to which we’ve exported manufacturing.
A line worker able to go upstairs to local engineering is a very tight feedback loop. Many US companies used to work like this to good effect until the 1990s.
It isn’t smart. It is, at best, smartiness.
idk, Dave…that assumes a level of competence and circumspection that is not otherwise evident in any of these events.
whats that aphorism? something about assuming malice, when stupidity works just fine?
i think that, rather, the Blob really believed their own nonsense(russia will collapse, then we swoop in and exploit it), and cant get past that belief.
they’ll be all butthurt that they didnt get to run off with all those russian resources, and then turn their attention to china as if none of this happened.
we will, of course, be expected to follow right along.
i wont, of course…i have officially turned my back to them.
shunning can be effective…ive seen it happen out here…literal backs turned to the offender who got away with it, but whom everybody knows is a POS.
just need to scale it up to national(and international) level.
one would hope that support for the genocide on everybody’s fones, globally, would do the trick,lol.
indications of that are one of the things i’ll be looking for in the post-election data.
I got a chuckle out of “Why Are Democrats Having Such a Hard Time Beating Trump? Nate Cohn, NYT” (have they really not figured this out almost ten years in??!?!??) being followed by the answer – 1K+ spooks endorsing the Democrats. Very dry, Lambert.
At some point, the DNC could just cut to the chase and rebrand as “The Spook Party”. After all, they’re almost half way there with all the CIA Democrats in the House.
But then I guess they wouldn’t be spooks if they actually called the swamp thing by its proper name (cue Confucius on rectification, etc.). And apologies to Bernie Wrightson.
That’s a lot of rice bowls there at threat. These are also the same people that have led America into the mess that it is in. I did notice something strange. In that page, shown at the bottom is a category of people called ‘Souvenir Military Spouse Advisors.’ Saywhatnow?
Lol, is that advisor for spouses of military souvenirs?
Stupid autocorrect. That should be ‘Senior Military Spouse Advisors.’
thank you. Best laugh I’ve had in a couple of days. / ;)
Shoot. I immediately thought of Petreus’s mistress, then you had to ruin the mirth by revealing the simpler truth. ;)
I just realized. Is this the Officers Wives Club that they are talking about? But only for senior officer’s wives?
thats where “Swinging ” originated, dontchaknow?
omg. laughing so hard. / hahahaha
no, seriously.
AF pilots and their wives.
so that whomever survived would take care of the families of the ones who didnt.
southern cali AF Base.
late 40’s.
direct line from that origin and the startlingly conservative nature of the old timers in the “Lifestyle”.(they generally vote GOP)-(yeah, more fieldwork,lol, but with wife)
ah.
“so that whomever survived would take care of the families of the ones who didnt.”
/respect.
In the book “The Right Stuff” it was mentioned that there were a lot of AF widows because of the number of pilots getting killed but unlike in the civilian world, widows were quickly snapped up by unmarried men because they were valued as experienced, knew the ways of the AF and brought a lot to the table.
Yelling at another woman and then repeating your Linkedin profile is not how to win over people. LMAO.
And assuming that is Alexandria, VA…ground zero for “my DC resume is my currency for status and power”
I was once on a little family-purpose trip to Washington DC. I remember being in a restaurant and overhearing/overwatching two strangers at the next table talking in very important terms to eachother about the very important things they were very importantly doing. I don’t remember what those importantly important things were. I remember the general tone of important importance.
( I also remember how unpleasantly hot DC could be. Partly because of so much brick, concrete and asphalt that I was being blasted from all sides by IR heat-rays on top of marinating in the hot wet air).
> Very dry, Lambert
Not to say positively arid!
This *ss-h*t Nate Cohn really takes the cake!
All those column-inches and not one mention of the Democrat-provoked slaughter in Ukraine, the Democrat-enabled genocide being perpetrated by Israel, or the Democrat-championed exodus of 3.7 Million middle-class jobs to China to be replaced by an army of zombified addicts.
The election isn’t so close because people just love the Orange One…
A little testimony from this Vietnam veteran, who swallowed the pill and enlisted in the Army in 1966:
In retrospect, I was a loser — lost three years out of my life, carried a load of “negative engrams” and various ills ever since. I’m guessing I am hardly alone in my state, among the survivors of all the Empire’s stupid, wasteful, greed-driven foreign “adventures.”
My take on Trump’s remark was that he recognized how Our Troops have been mis-led (and misled, that other term) by the Oligarchs and their minions, like MacArthur, on to Petraeus and his clade, up to Austin, a fully owned Congress and locked-down executive, and the management of the war industries. Their sacrifices, our sacrifices, are sneered at by our stay-at-home “rear echelon motherf***ers.” Who do think of us, if they do at all, as losers in the hardest sense.
I learned too late of the wisdom and honesty of Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler, calling out the imperial machine as a giant mafia racket, serving the interests of a very few.
And now we the many look with fear and regret at what the incoming set of nominal “electeds” are likely to do, as the blowback from Imperial Groaf manifests, in so many different ways. We don’t even get to just fade gracefully away, as “budget realities” occasioned by the vampire squids and warmongering Imperial “managers” get applied to “fixed costs” like the Postal Service, the VA, and Social Security. (Which could be rendered fully funded just by removing the cap on wages subject to FICA withholding.) Just make the best of an increasingly bad situation, marching now in step with all the other millions who’ve been impelled along the path to the precipice.
Lots of losers among the temporarily embarrassed millionaires and the Troops We Support. How many will go back and look at the context of the remark, or give any thought (other than our carefully curated Pavlovian binary response) to the outside-the-Mockingbird realities?
Thank you, JTM. Many of my high school classmates believed as you did back then. And we honored them then. What happened to that?
What better metaphor for chaos than the blank page?
RE: Issue 69 – Nice Molly White, [citation needed]. Crypto.
From the article –
“An interesting new case has been filed by blockchain gaming company FractureLabs against trading firm and market maker Jump Crypto, alleging that Jump defrauded Fracture and manipulated the markets for its DIO token. Fracture has described a pump-and-dump scheme allegedly perpetrated by Jump in concert with the Justin Sun-affiliated cryptocurrency exchange HTX (formerly Huobi).4 Amusingly, much of the complaint seems to come down to allegations that Jump Crypto did not do the market manipulation they had promised to do when they advised Fracture that they would “maintain the pricing parameters” that were required as part of a listing agreement. Instead, Fracture claims, Jump and HTX hired “online influencers” to pump the DIO token price, then profited millions of dollars when they dumped the token and caused its price to crash from almost $1 to less than half a cent. The suit is still very early — it was filed on October 15 and Jump has yet to respond — but it’s an interesting complement to the recent action from US law enforcement and regulators implicating market makers GotBit, MyTrade, ZM Quant, and CLS Global in providing “on-demand market manipulation” [I68]. The practice has long been an open secret in the crypto world — to the point that some in the industry occasionally seem to forget that it’s illegal — but now it seems that some companies may face more scrutiny for this activity.”
Talk about your prosecution futures. Better late than never I suppose that US regulators finally noticed the illegal activity, but is anybody going to get more than a token fine or slap on the wrist? The authorities seem fine with making SBF the scapegoat for everything – he may have been the biggest fraud but he was far from the only one. But now that he’s been convicted, the crypto “industry” keeps chugging along, with both candidates humping the crypto in this election cycle. And isn’t it funny that nobody ever looked into the Congressional connections to the SBF fraud? Nope, nothing to see there – they were all just honestly duped.
And if you believe that, well perhaps you’d be interested in investing in my latest NFT offering – a Xerox copy of my posterior digitally enshrined forever for the low price of one squillion dollars. It’s one of a kind!
wen moon?
Why the Right thinks Trump is running away with the race…Boston Globe sharing a NYT piece ******* “The partisan polls appear focused on lifting Republican enthusiasm before the election and — perhaps more important — cementing the idea that the only way Trump can lose to Vice President Kamala Harris is if the election is rigged.” OH. Well that’s never happened before, certainly not by the Dems or MSM. NYT, the same one that told us only a fringe minority opposed the War in Iraq during the period of chaos and violence after the main fighting had ended, even though polling showed a majority or near majority opposed continued US occupation. The same NYT that reported over and over that HC was the strongest candidate against Trump in 2016 as polling showed Bernie Sanders thrashing Trump while Hillary was never more neck & neck vs Trump.
RE: A Mother Superior’s Demons
A nice summary of a strange historical event. The religious hysteria of the 17th century does bear more than a passing resemblance to the ostensibly secular but similarly fanatic hysteria of the 21st Democrat party or Western “liberals” as a whole.
For a more comprehensive look at these events, I highly recommend Aldous Huxley’s The Devils of Loudun, available here for free.
And the movie with Oliver Reed and Vanessa Redgrave, if it is to be found anywhere. I saw it in about 1975 in a university theater for one dollar, along with another fifty students who were similarly dumbstruck on the way out of the building.
!! Thank you connecting the spectacular Ken Russell film to the excellent (and misinformation frenzy friendly / Silvia Federici modern witch hunt relevant) Huxley book I read for the first time last year. Don’t know why I never connected those two iconic and powerful cultural offerings together before.
> misinformation frenzy friendly / Silvia Federici modern
Federici = misinformation? Really?
the 1971 film by ken russell also is available at the internet archive.
I recommend the Esoterica channel on youtube for a learned take (and he pronounces ‘learned’ Homer Simpson style) – Demonic Possession, Sorcery & Satanic Pacts – Witchcraft and Exorcism in 17th Century Loudon France.
RE: News consumers are more influenced by political alignment than by truth, study shows
The article mentions previous studies showing that first it was biased and less educated (read: conservatives) who were influenced, then newer studies showed nobody was influenced, and the latest says it’s everybody. And how did they arrive at this startling conclusion? –
“The study is based on research conducted in 2020 with a sample of the voting-age U.S. population matched to the demographics of the census. The sample included proponents and opponents of former President Donald Trump, then running for re-election.
~snip~
The research team created fake headlines such as “Trump Beats Grandmaster Chess Champion” and “Trump Attended Private Halloween Gala with Sex Orgies Dressed as the Pope” and found that Trump supporters and opponents believed those that aligned with their views more than they believed true headlines that did not align with their views.”
This from Stanford, home of the supposedly non-partisan but actually highly partisan Election Integrity Partnership. For their non-biased study, Trump is the cynosure, the standard by which all things should be measured. FFS.
I don’t doubt that people on both sides of the political divide are susceptible to propaganda (Russiagate anyone? -still waiting for the “study” that shows more liberal bias and credulity, wonder why we haven’t got one of those yet…), but common sense is all that’s needed to show that, not BS studies from a bunch of partisan eggheads.
The way such allegedly scientific studies use Trump as if he were some kind of standard of measurement, you’d think there was a platinum-iridium ur-Trump stored in Paris alongside the international prototype kilogram and metre.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Prototype_of_the_Kilogram
i was having dinner with a (democrat) friend and she said ‘did you hear someone at a trump rally called puerto rico garbage?’ and i was talking with my (republican) coworker and he said ‘did you hear biden called all trump supporters garbage?’
and i told them both how it was a fun example in the media on both sides trying to spin the narrative in their favor. but people just want to zero in on one out of context quote that benefits their narrative instead of looking at the whole event in context and seeing the nuance of both sides. its frustrating.
cognitive dissonance is a common form of self defense.
my partner a blue dem “loves Kamala” will take no discussion of war and economics, much less values.
she gets aggita when we drive by MAGA sign, which are much more plentiful in our purple town.
I will vote straight GOP
I’m not a social scientist but I wouldn’t put much stock in the results of this study. For example, in the survey instrument (https://osf.io/anxu4) there is no option in the multiple choice answers for people who are skeptical of the news media and consult multiple news sources when judging the accuracy of a story.
Purely for entertainment I looked at how the Bruen decision is playing out by looking at the websites of different Sheriff’s offices.
In true blue Sonoma County `getting a concealed weapons permit will run you $3,000 or so, in neighboring Lake County which is Republican territory the cost is $300.
An order of magnitude difference.
I took a look at urban and rural counties in several Blue States and that pattern holds.
NY,Maryland,New Jersey,Mass…
If it’s blue only the Gentry are allowed to bear arms,once again showing that the Dems are much more class conscious than the Thugs and much more open about the need to keep the rabble in line.
The National Interest piece was strange as it makes an argument due to “wonderful performance” (without providing evidence) of Bradley Fighting Vehicle in Ukraine (my research suggests they burn easier than M1s, the lighter armor leads to greater deaths of soldiers inside, cannot carry the anti-drone protection cages of a tank, and are not sufficiently mobile to evade modern warfare) as arguing that (the stalemated war – NOT) if only we gave Ukrainian thousands of Bradleys at once can we change the war.
And then throws in a line that perhaps pursuing peace is a better option.
I can see why the article was written—it concerns the need to make money to replace thousands of Bradleys with a higher-profit platform. But otherwise, it is a very strange article written entirely in an alternative universe.
The author, Harrison Kass, “earned a Bachelor’s degree in History from Lake Forest College, where I also minored in Cinema Studies and hosted a radio show. Later, I earned a Juris Doctorate from the University of Oregon School of Law and a Master’s in International Relations and Global Journalism from New York University.”
Not much of a serious military arts or science background (pilot trainee with the USAF, medic-aled out) and now is running for Portland City Council. Bradleys are made in Pennsylvania.
https://kassforpdx.com/about/
Of the more fact-based souces, Dima at Military Summary often praises them, although he does seem to put a lot of emphasis on one instance where a Bradley took out a Russian tank.
(Sry for duplicate comment below.)
Well, there were two Bradley’s in that ‘duel’, and they did not manage to take out the Russian tank. They did manage to damage the tank’s turret control so that the tank wasn’t able to return fire. It was then finished off by multiple drone hits.
There are now so many videos of T-72s taking missile and drones hits, driving on mines and just keeping on keeping on that even some US experts are starting to admit that it seems to be the toughest tank in the world. But it’s in no way invulnerable, there’s also enough videos to prove that, too.
In a war tanks are consumables. That’s why Soviet Union had so many of them. The idea was that when NATO rolls east, 3rd Army of the Soviets would “consume” 1st British Corps – and likely be destroyed in the process. Then the second echelon 20th Guards Army would roll west, since there was no 2nd British Corps…
The only duel Bradley got in, was a joust with BTR. It lost.
Simplicius thought, iirc, that Bradleys were better, or at least, more useful to the Ukrainians, than Leopard 2’s or Abramses, FWIW.
Yep. Because they got more of them. In a war vehicles are consumables.
Bradley are part of air land battle, iow they operated teamed with main battle tanks (5 or 6 Bradley per tank), artillery and infantry. Oh and the air component: fixed wing, helo, and spotters.
The mix does not exist for Ukraine, whose pathos is not NATO.
While the air part is not in Ukraine, bc too much logistics, too few aircraft/pilots and not enough airfields outside range of Russia fires.
Aside the remote mine delivery insists more Bradley’s to cover the combat engineers which were not part of the attack formations.
Bradley was not the only system dripped to the attack.
Going on the cheap to attack.
Thing is, the Bradley is old. It’s designed for warfare in the 1970s. It was the replacement for the M113 and the US response to the BMP. No doubt in some ways it’s still effective. But when you think about it, calling for the US to manufacture thousands of Bradleys and shipping them to Ukraine to win the war is like calling for Britain to manufacture thousands of steam tractors and then shipping them to Poland in 1939.
If the US is serious about winning the global war it wants to start — and I must emphasise I don’t want the war to begin, and if it does happen I want the US to lose — then it really needs to start developing some modern, functioning weaponry.
Most of the armored vehicles on this battlefied are of similar age. In every field, technological advancement reaches a plateau.
https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-google-images-maps-military-positions-andriy-kovalenko-1979264
Ukraine Official Accuses Google Maps of Giving Away Military Positions
Google Maps has published updated imagery showing the location of unspecified Ukrainian military systems, with the technology giant “working to rectify the situation,” a Kyiv official has said, as forces try to fend off fierce Russian attacks and slow gains, heading into the winter season.
Russia is “actively dispersing” images highlighting Ukraine’s military equipment, Andriy Kovalenko, an official heading the disinformation branch of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said in a post to messaging app Telegram on Sunday.
Kovalenko did not say which equipment featured in the images, nor the approximate location of the systems. Representatives for Google reached out to the Ukrainian authorities and “said that they are already working to rectify the situation with the images of our military systems,” Kovalenko said in a later statement.
Of the more fact-based souces, Dima at Military Summary often praises them, although he does seem to put a lot of emphasis on one instance where a Bradley took out a Russian tank.
Mark Twain had a keen eye for American politics and its scoundrely nature. Two funny short stories from the Mid-1800s. Nothing much has changed. / ;)
Political Economy
https://involarium.org/story/political-economy/
Running for Governor
https://americanliterature.com/author/mark-twain/short-story/running-for-governor/
Whenever I despair of US politics going off the rails I read Twain and realize it’s always been going off the rails, more or less. / ;)
Re: The Salisbury Tales
Seems good to me: comprehensive explanation of the circus performance, and it addresses the issue of the forensic identification of the alleged substance. But I do still wonder about how the High Court reached its novichok conclusion in a decision soon after the incident – I think it was the application for permission to take samples from the Skripals without their consent.
Another Salisbury resident ran the Blogmire, a blog that shredded the emerging media narrative at great length, but my bookmark for it now links to some junk site. The guy was a Calvinist exegete and very thorough.
> Another Salisbury resident ran the Blogmire, a blog that shredded the emerging media narrative at great length, but my bookmark for it now links to some junk site.
Not to assign work, but any luck with the Internet Archive?
Plenty of archive activity, going back to 2013, so perhaps he was snapshooting for himself, but the spikes come in 2019. I clicked the first entry for 01 May 2019, but the hamster wheel of doom keeps spinning. Might be a lingering archive.org problem post-cyber attack.
My bookmark is for the first of the Skripal related articles in the blog’s chronological list of articles, so probably March 2018: http://www.theblogmire.com/page/4/
The great Craig Murray has stuff too!
results from entering “Skripal” in the site´s search
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/?s=Skripal
(Murray is constantly blocked by our friendly government agencies so sometimes it takes time. I have yet to figure out what weekday they are off at MI-5)
and also see the site´s forum:
first readers comment 2019
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/forums/topic/new-skripal-theory/
this thread starts 2023
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/forums/topic/the-salisbury-poisonings-episode-was-all-staged/
Final days of an amazing roadtrip and cruising through Death Valley NP as just deserts…
“just deserts” I see what you did there. / ;)
There’s a world-wide industry in “dental tourism”. Hungary, Costa Rica, Thailand, India and Mexico are common destinations. A number of these clinics exist only for the foreign trade and will arrange transportation, lodging, etc. Compared (for example) to Manhattan, the prices can amount less than 20% of what you’d pay at home.
The problem is, without a stable clientele, staffing needs at these clinics change constantly, and they can’t put off appointments for 3 weeks if Yankee Joe has a return ticket in 4 days. So you may well see a per diem or even hourly dentist, among a large stable of them — not the guy on the website who did the fellowship at U Penn.
Then you have the crown….. These take a fair amount of skill or you’ll have nothing but trouble. In effect, it’s the same challenge “patients” have here: finding someone competent. Everyone’s got a great dentist and yet most of the dental work is lousy. But here at least you can go to a board certified dental surgeon who’s sustained a reputation for a few years, and he’ll be there next month if you need something….
Beyond that, your experience is not all that uncommon — spending a small fortune to save a tooth, and ending up with an implant anyway. Between that and yanking healthy teeth, it’s dog eat dog, like every other aspect of American medicine for profit. In Manhattan, they’ll charge you $250 to re-cement a crown or $500 for a simple filing.
While there are numerous things about this election that anger and enrage me, it is the things that sadden me that linger the most.
Today has brought a new one, the knowledge that if the late estimates that Harris will win in a landslide because of women are correct the cynical, divisive and in some ways dangerous ad campaign to convince women to lie about their votes will be considered a success. It will be repeated. And dare I say it, allow the people behind it and the candidate to wink at and ignore the abusive type of relationship where this would be necessary. Beyond the cynical vote for us we’re better on abortion, this lack of real concern for families of abuse, it is rarely just the woman, being a “winning strategy” is heartbreaking.
or well, being the old cynical person that I am, is publicly encouraging women to lie about their votes, or prime the public to think a percentage women will lie about their votes, is that a way to hide or dismiss any computerized ballot tabulation hijinks? See, she won in an unexpected landslide because women lied about their votes. (Not there are any hijinks, of course.) / ;)
The spouse lying is old hat. Pollsters know this. I feel the Team Blue foxus on it is meant for appeasing donors.
There are some anecdotal reports of canvassers reporting this, and “yeah, no s**t Sherlock” should be the response. This is like day one stuff.
The sequence was ads -> reactions -> “reports” from canvassers
Never heard of anyone mention it before the ads, make of that what you will
adding: ” this lack of real concern for families of abuse”
Yes. Absolutely. 100%. / my 2 cents
Stephen Hadley’s ” Xi Jinping’s Axis of Losers” article reads like a combination of cope, projection and fantasy. It seems doubtful that the ChinaGov will give in to American pressure to allow the AmeriGov to keep deciding which countrygovs will be designated losers and which won’t. Ukraine is just as dependent on NATO-EUFUKUS aid and support as Hadley claims Russia is dependent on China-Iran-North Korea support. And Russia is achieving way more with the support it gets. NATO-EUFUKUS support just keeps Ukraine in the field just enough to keep getting attrited and ablated by Russia. And China gains more from keeping Russia together as one country than allowing NATO-EUFUKUS to break up Russia into many little colonizable statelets according to the Brzezinski Plan.
Would a series of “sharp blows” to Iran and “its proxies” allow for a beginning of a better future for the Palestinians? Only if such blows were to somehow lead to the “Israelis” inside Israel rising up and exterminating the “Judeans” inside Israel into extinction or into abject submission to “Israeli” rule. And even then, only if the “Israelis” who could be victorious in such a Civil War of Political Cleansing would then impose acceptance of the Two State Solution on their own population by dispassionately exterminating every one of their own citizens who objects. ( And only if the “Israelis” could get all that done so fast that the American Rapturaniacs and Armageddonites could not intervene fast enough to support the “Judeans” to exterminate the “Israelis” instead, in order to preserve and realize the CUFI Red-Heifer agenda for Israel. MABORGA! MAke Book Of Revelation Great Again!)
It seems doubtful that the ChinaGov will give in to American pressure to allow the AmeriGov to keep deciding which countrygovs will be designated losers and which won’t…
[ Wonderfully droll. ]
The trouble is that every one of Hadley’s “Axis of losers” is actually winning, and although Hadley handwaves around it, he more or less admits it by saying that US policy must be to turn them into losers. But, please note, this has been US policy for more than forty years in some of those cases, and over those forty years, the policy has failed in every instance. And Hadley offers no new idea as to how the increasing success of all of those countries is to be countered, or how to prise those countries away from their ever-growing friendship with China. In effect he is living in a political masturbatory fantasy.
Sounds like Nate Silver has given up on the Dems, and is writing post-election analysis.
He seems utterly mystified about why voters have given up on the Democratic Party. And yet:
Where was the Democratic Party? Riding these movements to political power and success? No, they were doing everything they could to keep them at bay and protect their fat cat funding sources. This was not only a series of missed opportunities but also demonstrated to 300 million US voters that the Democratic party leadership was rotten to the core and would never champion their interests.
I remember thinking when Biden was elected and Dems had a majority in both houses that they better get off their asses and do a ton of stuff in their first two years to make up for all their previous failures as much as possible. Instead we got two years of complete inaction and endless excuses about why nothing could be done.
Going back to the time before: no one ever mentions T’s promise to deep six the TPP and TPIP trade deals in 2016 as a possible reason for his win. It’s like it’s been erased as a possible important thing in the voting result.
good recall, there.
the memoryhole must be frelling huge.
Its really an epic Mephistophelian bargain flora …. On one hand you have the Dem Corps and their socioeconomic engineering agenda and then the Rep Corps brand albeit the neoliberal economics does not skip a beat.
I mean the Reps are going after FTC Linda Khan on ideological grounds [shades of Born over unregulated Derivatives] and Trump is jaw boning about giving Elon Musk a perch as some efficiency[tm] Czar to cut the Gov fat e.g. run the nation like Tesla. If Trump gets in this time he has his ducks in a row and not the shambles of his first unexpected win. Hence he and his cabal will probably go total shock doctrine on the nation and world.
Dems on the other hand are making an attempt to advance collective bargaining power whilst not pissing off the funding/investor class as window dressing. Its all so Veblen – esque.
Meanwhile the nation is tearing itself apart over hyper Platonism constructs, construed out of whole cloth, and delivered with epic Bernays level Amps to ones mind e.g. must be feral card carrying member of cult one or two i.e. take no prisoners.
Add on the epic environmental changes taking place all over the world but, yet investors are the most holy of all and must be rewarded before all things or the whole thing goes poof …
Yet here I sit in OZ loving work, getting silly fit at 63, and dating a 38 yr old sweet lass of a lady – best connection in my life and life is so abstract at the end of the day.
Is it really though, at least in flyover country?
” On one hand you have the Dem Corps and their socioeconomic engineering agenda”
Indeed we do re Dem Corps. The GOP in flyover states are, imo, are still primarily interested in their state’s welbeing, in their state’s economic vs national economics interests. It could be different in non-flyover states.
But that’s just me. / ;)
adding: best wishes for your current romance. really.
I grew up in IA, MO, AZ, from the 60s to the late 70s flora, very deep generational roots and in some cases affluent in state politics. Been a hell of a show watching it over the years, especially after coming to NC and getting a poly-sci upgrade. Per se I would take my state Governor Goldwater as a kid over both currant options.
I say this as a PKE MMT sort of economics back drop and concur with Hudson on many things.
Dumb Americans | George Carlin | Life Is Worth Losing (2005) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLODGhEyLvk
Its an economic saw movie too me flora … oh and I accept your wishes and back at you lov. My life has always been a bit absurd, most would know that by now.
dern Skip…does she have a sister?
a crazy aunt, perhaps?
Gosh amfortas … remember your comments on the topic, yet, I did the hard yards of going forensic on the dating site industry like NC Richard Smith back in the day. Phew … 33 yrs of marriage and having to learn everything all over again when it comes to dating today in this new reality.
Not to mention some really epic failed dates, I mean epic, travel 2 hrs after a month talking on the phone, only to arrive at an estate in NSW coast that was once a rehab joint for the likes of Naomi Campbell et al. Daughter is ex world champion OZ sport woman and member of notable reality TV show in 2014. Buzzed through gates and presented to a swollen waxy short barrel in a expensive white day dress and …. glitched …
Tried to be kind and gave a hug only to be kissed like a cow having a lick of a salt block lol. Half hour and I dropped it would not work on any level. Bad photos – ???? – is a great start to any human relationship – ugh.
Anyway meeting Del was totally random. My age perimeters in viewing others was low because I was both looking and analyzing the dating market dynamics from a economic and poly-sci perspective. In that I saw her photo and remarked on how she reminded me of a dynamic in Calif during the 80s, people enjoying being themselves and having fun with period looks, hers are so 50s in dress and at home. I just said thank you for the fond memories and to my surprise she responded back. Yet her mind would be in line with what goes on here at NC.
So she is flying up from Sydney to Brisbane on the 22nd, very causal meeting, walk around my area with dogs, in the city around the river, epic BBQ, watch both Blazing Saddles and Dr Strange love as she has not seen them.
Its all so random mate … life never stops blowing me away … still dream of doing a pop and bang on your bar from above …
If not for Trump’s turn-off of being an unfiltered numbskull, this election would be over.
Here we stand on the eve of the eve of the election. Facts are now rising up to the collective consciousness, like bad stuff scraped off the bottom of the kettle floating to the top of road kill stew:
1. The entire Ukraine project was a failure. Well, except for splitting off Germany and Western Europe from Russia and turning them into vassals that pay tribute to the suzerain. We’ve helped kill another 500k souls as a ballpark figure. That’s some serious next-level killing by the Bidens, with a big help from the neo-cons who already gave us a formidable body count in Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan, not to mention the GWoT. Biden ordered the destruction of the NS pipeline, costing Germans millions if not billions in higher energy bills. How do you say “Rust belt” in German?
2. We’re the highest-order enablers and facilitators of genocide. We’re talking Rwanda-level or Bosnian ethnic cleansing. We’ve had to endure the spectacle of a fraudulent diplomatic cover act that is the equivalent of a six-month tour of whitewashing the Einsatzgruppen. This fraud has been intentional, and represents a pattern of behavior lasting months. This is who we are under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. We are fine with a maximalist Netanyahu, Gallant, and Ben-Gvir rolling through Gaza, South Lebanon, and maybe Damascus like Operation Barbarossa mixed with Mosul sprinkled with Bakhmut, with a side of Bosnia fries and McFamine shake to wash it down.
We like Bibi! We invited him to Congress; Chuck Schumer, Mitch McConnel, Nancy Pelosi and Mike Johnson salute the Israeli flag more than they salute the American flag. They’ve used whatever oath they swore to uphold the constitution and the laws of the land as toilet paper.
Failure cannot be rewarded. Someone has to pay. Harris may not have been a principal architect of the failure, but she was part of the freak show and she has culpability for not speaking up one iota to indicate the slightest of policy change is in her roadmap to address either of these barbaric acts.
Of course, the Republican party might be worse. That leaves us with the hope that Trump will not lose his nerve and nominate Bolton and Pompeo, and hope is not a strategy.
And of course, your comments on BLM, Occupy Wall Street, and MFA are spot-on. Both parties want to exterminate any shred of populism or care for the middle class with extreme prejudice. They want you to produce and become part of the bezzle or die.
“Just die!” could be either party’s motto.
May both parties rot and a third party arise.
Is it too late for Kamala to change her pronouns to he/him to sweep the AA men votes?
I’d like to see Cheney and the rest of Her ilk sentenced to a year of labor ( Paid at minimum wage) at a large VA hospital, as an orderly in the Burn and head injury wards.
I visited my grandfather several times in the VA Hospital, starting at age five.
My Mother told me “You must not flinch” and made sure I saw the reality of what War brings.
I have over the years visited neighbors and relatives in VA hospitals, in the amputee wards most are positive, they are learning how to use their prosthesis.
There is a life ahead of them.
The burn wards can be a horror, and the head wound wards will bring anyone with an ounce of humanity to tears.
The depravity of these chickenhawks is beyond words.
aye. I grew up with Don…stepdad, lived at end of road before that, so i knew him forever.
shot in T-5 in a rice paddy outside of Danang in 68.
only spoke of it once, when his LT was out here, both drunk on vodka at 9am.
but i learned enough besides.
to me and my brother, then to my boys, the refrain, repeated ad nauseum: do not, under any circumstances , join the armed forces.
for 45 years, straight.
VA, et al., took real good care of him, and us.
they didnt expect him to live past 1970.
The timeless “Dulce et Decorum Est
By Wilfred Owen”
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
Hmm. Snopes trying to cover for Harris-
‘Did Harris’ Irish Ancestor Own Slaves in Jamaica? Here’s What We Know’
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/harris-ancestor-slaves/
They say that it can only be ‘resolved’ with a DNA test but would she ever take one? Remember what happened when Elizabeth Warren took one?
“Are We the Baddies?” — That Mitchell and Webb Look – https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=h242eDB84zY
Russians doing it again. In the Russian Foreign Ministry they have a section called the Department of European Cooperation, Well, they used to. They have renamed it and it is now called the Department of European Problems-
https://www.rt.com/news/606951-eu-problems-ukraine-osce/
This is a google-translated version of a German interview with Princeton historian Matt Karp.
It´s German JACOBIN. I haven´t found it on American JACOBIN.
It´s not as bad as the title would suggest:
Trump stands for the total erosion of society
Many fear that a second Trump term will lead to the establishment of a fascist dictatorship. However, what is more likely is an accelerated social disintegration, which has long characterized the USA.
The interesting thing are the questions constantly insinuating bad bad Trump and Karp tries to differentiate and between the lines may be even more…
Actually: It tells you little about the GOP and much more about the academic left in the US (i.e. Karp, JACOBIN and Co.) having no clue, no plan. If there IS some “Joy”, it´s the hope by Trump voters that there IS some progress, on the lines described by Robert Barnes during the DURAN interview which I have also linked in the NC post that came after this one.
There Barnes in the final half hour spoke about a possible administration under Trump in forms of fairy-tales that come true.
And now the interview with Karp –
https://archive.is/r2cdg
e.g.
“Q: What does this tell us about Biden’s record and the limits of a social democratic agenda in the US more generally? You recently pushed back against the notion that Bernie’s campaign significantly influenced the Biden administration, but there was at least some notable public investment, some support for unions, and so on. Is moderate inflation enough to discredit these achievements?
A: I don’t rule out that left-wing ideas coming out of the Sanders campaign have proved influential, but I think that’s true on the right as well as the left. You can see that in Europe too, with a move away from really dogmatic neoliberalism on the center-left and a move towards a kind of national conservatism on the center-right. That’s not to say they’re anti-market now, but they’re talking about using the relationship between market and state in different ways. In Trump’s case, that means he’s promising to protect the existing elements of the U.S. welfare state, which Republicans never used to do. So some of that is thanks to Bernie, but a lot of it is actually due to the exhaustion of the neoliberal paradigm, to the fact that it just doesn’t work anymore in economic terms.”
or this:
“Q: You’ve expressed skepticism about whether Trump really poses a fascist threat. Let’s assume he wins. What do you think that will realistically mean for the working class and for politics?
A: My argument against the fear of Trump as a dictator is that the Democratic Party, if you look at the crude measure of campaign contributions, dominates such a large part of our economy. I know there are renegade billionaires who support Trump – Elon Musk is one of the most disgusting examples of this campaign – but the boards of these tech companies are all behind the Democrats.
If you look at prestigious universities, law firms, or the public sector, they are not dominated by the left, but they are Democratic, and they are not being co-opted by MAGA. There is also no sign that the military is interested in supporting Trump. He spent his entire first term arguing with them. So even if Trump wanted to implement the extreme measures of Project 2025, he would face a lot of obstacles.”
this here delivered the title “total social hollowing out.” – but that now is a typical talking point by a Princeton guy:
“Q: You mentioned the class shift within the Democratic Party’s base, a phenomenon we can also see in Europe, where working-class voters are drifting towards right-wing and even far-right parties. In Europe, this shift is more individual – workers may vote for right-wing populists, but they don’t join far-right parties or engage in right-wing mass politics. What are things like in the US? Do you see a danger of the organized right growing within the working class?
A: I think it’s structurally similar to what you’re describing in Europe. The real threat from Trump is not fascism, but total social hollowing out. What he represents is total alienation and social isolation: OnlyFans, online gambling, social media, this complete abandonment of healthier, meaningful social forms. I don’t think he’s a Christian nationalist or at the forefront of what you could call a Christian nationalist movement. Church attendance is declining sharply across the country, and that trend is continuing under Trump. Now, you can always trace a little winding path from a far-right intellectual to a Republican politician, but I think that explains very little.
It’s a global, post-industrial phenomenon that the left no longer automatically attracts the votes of the working class: in an era of globalization, left-wing parties have moved to the center and have attracted the votes of the professional middle class everywhere, while workers have drifted to the center right. But if you look at the numbers, it’s all very thin and scattered. It’s not like the Proud Boys or other far-right groups are popping up all over America. These people are frauds, they’re online commentators, the saddest form of social being and belonging.”
but then comes this odd set of arguments:
“Republicans are not culturally up to date. They are still good at winning elections, but that’s it. They are not winning hearts and minds on all sorts of issues, even within their own party. They may be targeting trans people in this campaign, but it’s undeniable that Republicans have moved left on LGB issues over the last decade because the country has moved left on those issues. Their strongholds are in the fossil fuel industry, home improvement stores, and the like – they are not at the forefront of 21st century capitalism. I don’t think a Republican victory is a good scenario for the left or for the country, but they are not capable of establishing a dictatorship.”
Karp´s final comment:
“So what would a second Trump presidency look like? I think there will be a lot of golf and scandals, more social erosion, poisoned drinking water – all the things that make our society worse. So I don’t want to downplay the threat, but that’s the problem with the fascism argument: many of us end up sounding like apologists for it, even though I actually detest it. Still, it’s ridiculous to put it in the garb of interwar Europe.”
https://x.com/AmfortasH/status/1853262690124251604
What? No picture?!
“This is the entrance ramp to an underground shopping centre car park with thousands of parking spaces. Rescuers have yet to dive down. This just gets more nightmarish https://t.co/1zFcmCUb9c.”
Fortunately, it seems that it is not as nightmarish as it seemed. From spanish newspaper ABC (in Spanish) Rescue teams find no bodies in the first inspection of the Bonaire Shopping Center
The floods have been catastrophic. But there has been a lot of fake news trying to paint a much worse picture.
The International Court has declared Israel an illegal state: https://x.com/Ioan92244533060/status/1853158205620138012
“… a watershed moment for Palestine, for justice and for international law. Israel’s occupation has been declared unlawful by the World Court, which has stipulated that it must be terminated completely and as rapidly as possible, The court has also found that Israeli occupation violates the UN Charter of Human Rights and international humanitarian law. The courts further unequivocally declared that all Israeli settlements in the Palestinian occupied territory are illegal and must be dismantled and that all Israeli settlers must be evacuated…”
Please be more careful. I wasted 10 minutes I do not have on this.
The clips are from July, FFS. This is old news. You could have seen that if you read the replies. I stupidly first went to find stories in the Arab and Israel press, and there were none.