Man v. cobra YouTube (resilc). Impressive.
CDC Buildings Hit by Gunfire MedPage
Americans get more than half their calories from ultra-processed foods, CDC report says Associated Press (Kevin W). I can’t even…
#COVID-19/Pandemics
He died from Long COVID today. His words: “I’ve experienced more discrimination and stigma for being openly disabled by #LongCovid than I ever did for being openly gay” When will the gaslighting stop? How many more need to die? https://t.co/Mf0pNGwEfX pic.twitter.com/Pmlw52DbW4
— Neurologist Mom (@NeurologistMom) August 7, 2025
If you shifted to Novavax (and you avoided exacerbating Long Covid) you made a good move for your health.
The data on this drug are undeniable.
✅Safety profile
✅ Effectiveness
✅ Durability https://t.co/Tv2ORoJauv— Dr. Sean Mullen (@drseanmullen) August 8, 2025
Climate/Environment
Massive out of control forest fire in Çanakkale, Turkey now…pic.twitter.com/VZRNTeyorW
— Volcaholic 🌋 (@volcaholic1) August 8, 2025
Germany Gets No Bids in Zero-Subsidy Offshore Wind Auction Bloomberg
China?
Trump’s Policies Will Make China Great Again CounterPunch (resilc)
US senators sound alarm on DeepSeek’s security risks Asia Times (Kevin W)
Xi holds phone talks with Putin Global Times. I searched on China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs site and found no readout as of early AM US EDT; this seems to be the closest as of now. The Russian readout is thin.
Africa
As the world focuses on Gaza, starvation also looms in Sudan Economist
Ceasefire in doubt as Rwanda-backed rebels kill hundreds in eastern DR Congo UN
Oil exploration in the Congo basin rainforest could be a disaster for nature and the climate Guardian
South of the Border
Gee, another regime change op against Venezuela, just like happened in the first term. So unpredictable, so unexpected https://t.co/SBsXezNmtv
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) August 8, 2025
Warlord ‘Barbecue’ Threatens Haiti PM Office as Violence Flares Bloomberg (resilc)
European Disunion
Irish exporters ‘told to shut their mouths’ over Trump tariffs Irish Times. PlutoniumKun:
Interesting article here from the Irish Times on the EU-Trump trade deal. I’ve suspected that the EU actually pulled one over on Trump – and the feedback from lots of exporters seems to be confirming exactly that – many think they are actually better off now. When you really dig into the details, the EU came out very well from the deal – they were happy to sacrifice a little dignity to get it. They learned a lot dealing with Boris Johnson.
European earnings lag behind US as trade war throttles market revival Financial Times
Old Blighty
UK hasn’t seen poverty like this for 60 years, says Gordon Brown in call to scrap two-child benefit cap Independent
Israel v. The Resistance
“We are just as broken as the people we're trying to care for”.
Majdiya is an UNRWA colleague in #Gaza. Amid hunger, displacement, and relentless bombardment, she continues to serve her community.
Her voice speaks to the lived reality of UNRWA staff on the ground. pic.twitter.com/xK6OjafovW
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) August 6, 2025
I would migrate to another planet and convert to any religion, or spend my entire life in a dungeon, and not be associated with these piles of genetic and moral garbage.
People who still shut up: I am so happy to not be you. Your life is a failure, and you are a failure, and… https://t.co/iumXiHUDcq
— Alon Mizrahi (@alon_mizrahi) August 7, 2025
Smotrich poses next to ‘Death to Arabs’ graffiti in illegal West Bank settlement Middle East Eye (resilc)
Netanyahu, Aiming to Capture Gaza City, Reverts to a Failed Military Strategy New York Times (resilc). Colonel Wilkerson maintains that the IDF is on the verge of collapse and odds favor the US dispatching forces to shore them up.
US drifts further from allies as it shrugs at Israel’s Gaza plan BBC (resilc)
At least six killed, 10 wounded in Israeli strikes on Lebanon Aljazeera
New Not-So-Cold War
Poll: 69% of Ukrainians Want Negotiated End to War as Soon as Possible Antiwar.com (resilc)
Washington and Moscow preparing deal on Russian-occupied territories ahead of Trump-Putin meeting – Bloomberg Urkainska Pravda. The Russian General Staff has said the Ukraine army will collapse in three months. And I can’t see US Ukraine hawks accepting any territorial concessions.
Poland’s Tusk says Russia-Ukraine war could be frozen ‘sooner rather than later’ Kyiv Independent
Trump-Putin Meeting ‘POLITICAL THEATER,’ Not an End to the War Mark Sleboda
While Trump Talks Peace, is the US Setting the Stage for More War? Larry Johnson. On latest Seymour Hersh article. Note that Hersh’s record on Russia-Ukraine is poor. Notice also:
Armenia reportedly plans to withdraw from CSTO by early 2026. (The CSTO is the Russian founded military alliance in Eurasia consisting of six post-Soviet states: Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan.) Moreover, the US also reportedly secretly promised NATO membership to Armenia and Azerbaijan for signing on to this deal, which would give NATO access to the Caspian Sea by virtue of the Zangezur corridor.
And here is the kicker (if true): Some telegram channels claim that US troops are set to be deployed in Armenia within the next 48 hours.
Kremlin confirms that Putin-Trump summit to take place in Alaska on August 15 TASS
Ukraine and the Chronicle of an Announced War Nachdenkseiten via machine translation (Micael T)
Caucasus
Central Asia as a Vulnerable Node in Greater Eurasia Valdai Club (Micael T)
How ‘Trump Bridge’ May Soon Reshape Warzone Bordering Russia, Iran, Turkey Newsweek (Kevin W)
Imperial Collapse Watch
Adam Tooze · Is this the end of the American century? America Pivots London Review of Books (resilc)
Listen to Lavrov: Here’s why Russia won’t take crap from the EU anymore RT (Micael T). Important.
Another Illegal Trump War Is Coming Daniel Larison. Seeking an opponent he can look like he is actually beating.
Trump 2.0
Trump energizes conservative Christians with new religious policies Associated Press (Robin K)
Veterans’ Care at Risk Under Trump as Hundreds of Doctors and Nurses Reject Working at VA Hospitals ProPublica (Robin K)
New executive order puts all grants under political control ars technica (Paul R)
Trump announces federal law enforcement will patrol DC Politico (Kevin W)
Tariffs
Auto Industry Takes $12 Billion Hit From Trade War Wall Street Journal
Trump’s planned 100% computer chip tariff sparks confusion among businesses and trading partners Associated Press (Kevin W)
US to initially impose ‘small tariff’ on pharma imports, Trump says Reuters
Swiss Businesses Fear Trump’s 39% Tariff Will Create ‘Worst-Case Scenario’ New York Times (resilc)
Immigration
Child mental health crisis tied to immigration enforcement UC Riverside
GOP Clown Car
GOP’s FBI talk on Texas sparks firestorm with Democrats The Hill
Texas AG says he’s filed suit to remove 13 absent state Democrats from office in redistricting fight ABC (Kevin W)
Economy
Shades Of 2007 Seeking Alpha (resilc). Lots of supporting detail.
AI
Data-mining the Global South into submission RT (Micael T). Look at the tender pleading that all this exploitation by AI is beneficial: When AI Doesn’t Understand You: A New Form of Global Inequality Undark
ChatGPT as a Narcissus Mirror Neofeudal Review (Micael T). Important. Also helps explain its popularity.
Mindless Machines, Mindless Myths Los Angeles Review of Books
James Cameron warns of ‘Terminator-style apocalypse’ if AI weaponised Guardian (resilc)
The Bezzle
Why struggling companies are loading up on bitcoin Financial Times
Ex-SEC staff warns of another Lehman Brothers collapse The Street. Due to lack of limits on rehypothecation for crypto.
It's official:
The top 10% largest US stocks now reflect a record 76% of the US equity market.
This has officially surpassed the previous record set before the Great Depression in the 1930s.
By comparison, at the 2000 Dot-Com Bubble peak, the top 10%'s share was at ~73%.
In… pic.twitter.com/zkH069Vzr9
— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) August 7, 2025
Tesla used car prices keep plumetting, dips below average used car Electrek. Paul R: “Leopards ate Elon’s face.”
The Big Ten and private equity: Why college sports’ richest conference is doing its homework New York Times (resilc). Not news to regulars. CalPERS’ suddenly departed Chief Investment Officer Nichole Musicco was keen to get into sports deals.
Class Warfare
Holy shit! David beat Goliath?
The people of Tucson banded together and killed an Amazon data center project poised to guzzle millions of gallons of water a day. https://t.co/zfQElkMUmj
— Chai Dingari (@chaidingari) August 6, 2025
Insurance Companies’ Medicare Pullback Is Here Wall Street Journal (resilc)
Gambling with the Proletariat’s Future: How Capital Turns Pensions into a Predators’ Casino William Murphy
Antidote du jour (via):
And a bonus (guurst):
Ужасное нападение pic.twitter.com/mONB2gvSWG
— Etna (@Etnaetoya) August 7, 2025
A second bonus:
Dogs remember your smell forever 🐶🥹❤️ pic.twitter.com/U53ahMHMvS
— Nina Deer (@longdepzai_n) August 6, 2025
And a third:
Cat WWE💥🤣🤣🤣🤔 pic.twitter.com/s3ALcWulOf
— Stu thats all you get🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@Boldyboy1975) August 7, 2025
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
‘Attorney General Pamela Bondi
@AGPamBondi
Today, @TheJusticeDept
and @StateDept
are announcing a $50 MILLION REWARD for information leading to the arrest of Nicolás Maduro.’
I saw this clip on the news tonight and had to take a sharper look. I swear to god that this sounded and looked just like a clip generated by AI. Bondi really needs to loosen up a bit more. I got an idea. Maduro should announce his own reward on Trump – but for only two bits as that is all Trump is worth.
One of the replies to this tweet was this-
‘What’s the reward for finding Epstein’s files?’
What comes to Venezuelan presidents, wasn’t that Guaido dude up to his eyeballs in drug trafficking? Something about his second in command being found dead in a Colombian motel with suitcases filled with money and cocaine.
I guess you need a Department of Justice to make sure justice is not blind…
How about the hypocrisy /irony of the president of ecuador’s family …. the Noboa’s and their banana company… having been actually busted several times in the last five years , finding at least a thousand kilo’s of cocaine(combined); in at least three instances being smuggled in their banana shipments, out of south america and into europe… bonita banana…..
Then to have trump deport people to the prison in ecuador…. who are not anywhere near the criminals that both these presidents are… and call themselves tough on crime… Truly WTF?
These are the days when anything goes.
I think this is the video clip that future historians will refer to when pointing out the exact point in time the US dropped the veil and came out as an openly criminal organisation. Everyone and anyone is liable to their depredations and predations. The attack on Iran is a close runner up but this video clip has that effect where you gasp and ask yourself’ “is this real, did she really say that? Ho Lee Fuk!”
Maduro should announce his own reward for finding a missing dog, Guaido.
This is a doubling of the 25 million reward that was already in place during the Biden administration, I believe
Rev, her’s is a crude and clumsy replicate expression of the mafia state we’ve seen for quite a few years, quietly but now, ramped up to say it loudly. I’m sure I have missed some precursors.
Multiple levels here. Late stage empire flailing about.
Or… DJT must have new News Frontpage everyday…
The video shows Austria, not Australia. Wasn’t there a certain chap from Austria? A guy with a moustache?
Though far from the most explicit or bloodthirsty Israeli outburst, “I’m going to play golf in Gaza whether you like it or not” captures some ugly banal aspect to the genociders mindset perfectly.
Especially paired with “Execute children”.
These people are insane killers and our Western societies have gone fully insane enabling them.
Yep insane. From real world observations now I’ve come to the conclusion that trauma, especially childhood trauma, causes survivors to become unhinged in some way or other, and there are thousands of possibilities of unhingedness.
It isnt uncommon for the traumatised to inflict the same trauma onto others eg those subjected to violence inflict violence on others (dv survivors inflict dv), those sexually traumatised do to others what was done to them etc.(eg pedophiles).
And the jews who survived went through a lot of trauma a couple of generations ago. Either personally or vicariously, whole families gassed etc. And some even say that severe trauma becomes imprinted in the genes.
So the Israelis support the extermination of the Gazans in the face of growing world condemnation, even as their wholehearted supporters, the US, Germany, Uk, start to buckle under the optics of starving children.
But Israelis are completely blind to the immorality of the actions they are wilfully taking, and seem to think they are the victims. And that they are exceptional in the eyes of god.
Is there any hope of turning the traumatised around? Idk, but so far not looking good
30 years’ war and British WW1 blockade + Versailles as justification for the crimes of the Third Reich? While I accept that horrible traumas tend to receate themselves with victims turning perpetrators, this line of thinking strikes me as dangerously facile.
Most of human tribes went through some form of destructive trauma one time or another. Many people spend lifetimes concocting tales of terrible misdeeds done to them in the past (that may or may not be “true”) to justify their current ir future misdeeds. I think, whatever it takes, this sort of stuff needs to stop and not buying (at least not blindly) into “horrible stuff done to us in the past made us do it” is a good start.
Yes, and they are dragging the sane observers into insanity…
or not
imagine their victims
a genocide cannot be unseen
> “I’ve experienced more discrimination and stigma for being openly disabled by #LongCovid than I ever did for being openly gay”
Mori Calliope, who won Best Music VTuber in 2023, announced lung scarring leading to permanent loss of lung capacity.
Using public figures to provide a surrogate baseline has worked. Coupled with
> Long COVID in Young Children, School-Aged Children, and Teens JAMA Pediatrics. Now the most common chronic condition in US children.
from May, we have multiple vectors for the perception of undeniable damage. Checkout kids at the grocer have started wearing masks. Agency may start at the bottom.
I’ll be Captain Obvious and point out that whatever happens in Alaska next week, it will not result in a ceasefire. Because, without the presence of the Green Goblin (ht Alex Christoforou), any “agreement” will lack one of the two parties in the conflict’s assent.
See also: Yves’s comment that the Green Goblin still has agency.
So, peak Kabuki Theater?
The Green Goblin has already rejected giving up any territory because he reckons it is in their constitution not to just like with Russia. So he will automatically reject any agreement between Trump and Putin and the hard-liners in the Ukraine will make sure that he does. If Trump was smart, at that point he should say that he tried and just walk away from the Ukraine like he should have in January. But he won’t. This is now Trump’s war and he is investing his Presidency into it just like Biden did and he really wants that Nobel peace prize. Shutting this war down will guarantee one but he will only do so on terms where the US gets a big win in the Ukraine. Trouble is, those ‘wily’ Russians aren’t cooperating.
Thanks. I admit to playing the probably insane game of trying to figure out what is in Trump’s head. One scenario is a setup to walk away – I tried, but the Green Goblin won’t follow directions, etc.
The other is that he’s going to have to figure out how to get rid of the Goblin and replace him with a more compliant version. Perhaps a call to the CIA is in order, but has Tulsi gotten comfortable enough yet to have the capability?
I really don’t know what the point of that Alaska meeting is, I really don’t. As Yves has pointed out, leaders only have such meetings when everything has been negotiated and just needs the leaders to sign the treaties and grin at the cameras. Those two would be hard pressed on agreeing what to order from the lunchtime menu so what can possibly be decided in one meeting?
Too many variables for mere mortals to analyze. Too many tea leaves to read. I hope we all survive next week.
But what happens if – Gasp! – Lindsay Graham turns up to execute that ICC warrant and forgets that Putin is a martial arts expert. Or maybe they will recruit “Maverick” to get together a top gun fighter team to take down Putin’s Presidential plane and his fifth generation fighter escort? It’s such a Clown World now that anything is possible.
Or, the in-person meeting is a psy-op … they meet over the phone, Trump from a comfortable, secure location on a military base, and Putin from another, still inside of Russia.
Grinning photo-op of the two leaders handshaking courtesy of AI. Yes, it’s detectable, but just to eff with the press.
“But what happens if – Gasp! – Lindsay Graham turns up to execute that ICC warrant and forgets that Putin is a martial arts expert.”
You just got me to imagine Putin showing he’s still got the skills and doing an ippon seoi nage on Lindsey Graham and imagining that brought me tremendous satisfaction.
Have the Russians posted that the meeting is on that day and location? I don’t see Putin going to AK.
Unfortunately it has been confirmed.
Putin’s foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov did today announce there will be meeting in Alaska on 15th August. And that Moscow and Washington will be really busy to establish the “practical and political parameters” of the meeting.
The best tongue-in-cheek comment I’ve seen is that it’s about USA returning Alaska to Russia.
Alastair Crook, talking with Dima yesterday, speculated this whole charade is the Russians attempt to sort out what powers Trump can actually execute on, and to the extent he can or can’t, what that suggests about where and with whom other power resides.
A point made in a recent Mercouris commentary is that the first conversation between DJT and VVP led to a commitment (or at leat an expressed aspiration) that each leader would visit the other’s country.
One wonders how that idea interacts with the arrest warrant for Putin.
Netanyahu had the same warrant out for him but they never arrested him when he was in DC. And the Russians said some time ago that an attempt to nab Putin is the same as a declaration of war. But just to make sure that there is no funny business, Putin could mention to Trump that he has moved two of his own nuke boats nearer and do they really want to risk Diego Garcia being sunk?
ICC has no jurisdiction in USA, so the warrants are void there.
This is the stupidest timeline, though, so who knows what can happen. Putin obviously thinks it’s worth the risk.
Putin should mention to Trump that Medvedev will have the reins if something happens to him. A threat of tweetageddon, if any!
The ICC has jurisdiction to investigate certain types of crimes under certain circumstances (referral by states parties, referral by Prosecutor etc.) but here we are talking not about jurisdiction but about judicial cooperation. Under Article 89,
” The Court may transmit a request for the arrest and surrender of a person, … to any State on the territory of which that person may be found and shall request the cooperation of that State in the arrest and surrender of such a person.”
Whilst the US is not a state party to the Rome Statute, nothing would stop it voluntarily cooperating with the Court if it wanted to, unless there is some national legislation I’m not aware of.
US is not a party to the Rome statute and so not obligated to execute ICC warrants.
And if they tried, expect a visit from Mr. Oreshnik.
Plus we have legislation that virtually criminalizes icc activity in the US, and the administration is publicly and glamboyantly hostile to it.
I think it’ll be a tougher brother(s) of Mr. Oreshnik that’ll do the visiting….
Tea leaf department: I checked most of the big media outlets and there is one that seems to be not covering the story at all:
Politico.com
I don’t know if maybe they’re just sticking their heads in the sand, or they’re so distraught over this that they cannot bring themselves to assign a cub reporter to do a story, but it strikes me as odd.
The NY Times, The Hill, WaPo, all have the Alaska meeting on the main online page.
Lindsay Graham has been awfully quiet lately, too.
You think they will hold it in that same crappy hotel they had the US-China meeting back in 2021? Come to think of it, that one did not go so well and almost ended in a shouting match.
A funny data point. YouTube just banned exiled Ukrainian Journalist of the Year Diana Panchenko who is a Zelensky critic. She had 2 million followers and they just up and erased her account-
https://www.rt.com/russia/622688-youtube-ban-zelensky-critic/
Strange timing that.
I’ve been amazed that Dima (military summary) and Weeb Union have lasted as long as they have.
Dima’s YT videos routinely draw 10k+ views and tell a very different story than the Zelensky and Google regime would like you to think.
Without them, I’d be lost on what the true story is on the line of contact.
Should have put 10k likes. Dima is up to 365k subscribers – not too shabby.
The odd thing about the announcement is not saying where in Alaska. Alaska is geographically very large. One would assume Anchorage. But that’s not clear. When the Chinese and American foreign policy teams met in Alaska, Anchorage was specified as the location. They could just as easy meet in an out in nowhere place like Bethel – in SW Alaska, even closer to Russia. Bethel has an airstrip that can accommodate large aircraft. But very unlikely to have a venue suitable for such a meeting.
Anyway, the absence of the specific city seems strange to me. Just saying
Should have added that Bethel (as of all of Western Alaska) can only be accessed by air (or boat in Bethel’s case, depending on season). A safe place?
Russia: “We have found some irregularities in the Alaska Purchase documents …” /s
Think of it as yet another exicting episode in Trump reality show. He is all about the show.
Putin is maybe doing it in order to show that ICC stuff is nonsense, like in Mongolia but high-profile.
The best gloss I can come up with is that Putin wants to get some new issues on the table that matter a ton to Russia (and should to the US), particularly nuclear arms control. So Trump could score a win there to divert attention from Ukraine. And unlike most of Trump’s evasive maneuvers, that would be important.
Come to think of it, because of this “dramatic” meeting, Trump can push aside talk of all those deadlines and super-duper sanctions that he was supposed to hit Russia and the BRICS with about now and which he had boxed himself in with. Nobody is talking about them anymore which may be the real aim of this meeting.
Yes, it is simply amazing … the super-duper, Wile E. Coyote next-level “bone crushing” sanctions have disappeared from the headlines like a fart in the wind.
How do you spell ACME Corporation in Mandarin?
Sanctions or tariffs with many exceptions baked in.
The thing about those kinds of exceptions is that it’s possible for countries to have manage the hard feelings created from the winners vs losers being selected.
I think Trump desperately wants some kind of deal to bolster his imagined bonafides as a peace-maker. Any settlement on Ukraine is not gonna happen yet, per the Deep State/National Security State, as I’m sure Trump is well aware. Maybe when Ukraine collapses. Right now, the Russo-phobes in the Senate and media would raise holy hell. So the only way forward for Trump at the moment may be to begin dealing seriously with the nuclear issue. It would be a bone Putin tosses, and be a first step to a new security architecture for Europe. Of course, this topic will require genuine diplomatic efforts from the US, and real measures on the part of the US to climb down from 89 seconds to midnight and its first strike desires. Whether Trump is even capable of understanding the issues is a question (recall before his first run for office, he didn’t even know what the nuclear triad was). And all this assumes the US suddenly becomes agreement-capable. So for the US (and possibly the sake of the entire world) the only thing driving any effort to turn away from nuclear Armageddon at this point in time is not recognition of just how close we are to nuclear war, but one man’s overwhelming vanity and greed for a Nobel Peace Prize. (Trump as Gollum?) But on the slender chance that he actually makes some meaningful steps toward this goal, more power to him. But such is the degree of hatred directed toward Russia these days by Democrats, the PMC, as well as the Neo-con dominated foreign policy establishment, that an agreement of any kind is likely to produce a firestorm of allegations of treason. In this climate, would”Nixon goes to China” have been possible? “Trump goes to Russia” could well result in his assassination–which would surely make him hesitate to make a deal. In Trump’s mind: “Hmm… Nobel Prize or possible assassination, or both?” We really are not a serious country, with un-serious leaders. Just a gas station with nukes.
I can see something like that, too.
Because at the end of the day, whatever deals are made between the USA and Russia, Europe and Russia still have issues only they can resolve.
Once the US takes their finger off the scales in Europe, we will be more than happy to put our own house back in order. Germans and Finns and Lithuanians don’t hate Russians. We’ve just been the targets of varying numbers of decades’ manipulation by the world’s undisputed masters of the trade.
My not-good-at-all knowledge of history tells me that Lithuanians had a go at Moscow long before those “decades’ manipulation”. Just sayin’.
According to my perhaps-a-slightly-better knowledge of history the decades of manipulation started around 800 AD when Charlemagne, the pretender of the Emperor of Rome, was fighting tooth-an-nail the Byzantine and accordingly split the Christendom by forcing his subjects (against their will) to adopt the Western (known only to some half-illiterate Frankish bishops) rite instead of the original.
Did not take that long (in Ravenna, 967 AD) for the westerners to declare the Eastern Church as false and set “converting Russia” as one of the main tasks for the Western Church. This Drang nach Osten reached it’s culmination in 1942 (at least we long though so).
Most of the Russophobic imagery and pathos can be traced back to the texts of the Teutonic Knights fighting Novgorod and Moscow in the Baltic ~1200 AD, in which they try to unite the “Christendom” to support them in this fight to save the said “Christendom” against barbarian hordes – they were way too weak do it by themselves, but had some success as the Russian princedoms had their hands full with shielding the actual Christendom from the worst of Mongol invasion.
And it may not be officially released info, but I wouldn’t be surprised if discussion about Iran and nukes was on the agenda.
IMO Putin is just playing Trump like a violin. He knows that Trump is in serious trouble domestically and needs to grab headlines for something that sounds like a win or at least a positive thing. I’m not sure what Putin gets out of it, except maybe a reputation for being willing to negotiate and work with the international community. Maybe he’s just doing a Netanyahu: “look, I can pull US leaders around on a string!”
I’m sure if Putin proposed that he and Trump jump off the Brooklyn bridge together Trump would happily go along with it.
After he tries to sell it to the Russian?
Everything depends on how much Trump understands and wants to get out of the fix he is in politically, and how much he craves the utterly devalued Nobel Peace Prize.
Trump could have a meeting of minds with President Putin about how they can approach the various issues outstanding between their countries – including Israel and Iran, the Zangezur corridor. the likely future of NATO, and establishing the bases for future Summits to settle or provide a series of frameworks for settling their difficulties.
Trump will most likely agree to put terms acceptable to the Russians to Zelensky knowing that they will be rejected. Having done his best, he can then walk away and leave the Ukraine to the Russians and give Biden, Blinken and Sullivan a good kicking before the mid-terms and pin the blame for the war and the Gaza genocide on them. As he seems to have a preference for fear over love, he can also make an example of unfaithful servants who have consistently withheld information from him and given him partial advice reflecting their own interests and not those of the United States.
I firmly believe that Trump has the ability, ruthlessness and capacity to bullshit and walk back any old nonsense and regain trust by meeting his base on their terms in order that he can reshape the Republican party in Congress to ensure that the second half of his term is slightly less dissonant than the first half, and that his priority is a secure peace for the US despite the pressures from those hawkishly inclined to use the lives of American boys as casino chips in whatever variant of the Great Game they think they are playing. And he can surely talk his way out of any problems which may arise from his relationship with Epstein and I suspect Ghislaine Maxwell will testify to his probity, blamelessness and boy scout innocence to Congress and every media outlet which approaches her.
The Ukrainians, in their wisdom, will either do a reverse Maidan or accept that it will be up to Russia to destroy the régime, the Azovs and the Galician Nazis, and any Europeans setting foot on the once and, possibly, future Ukraine before establish a peace beneficial to both the Russian and the Ukrainian people.
President Putin may wish to remind Americans that the Germans, the British and the French have all committed acts of war against Russia and the Russians have more than enough casus belli to justify any attacks on German, French and British soil and they have not yet done so in their desire for a satisfactory future peace based on a fundamental re-structuring of the Russo-European-North Atlantic security architecture.
But I may just be a tragic optimist and things will just go belly up again and Russia may be forced to intensify it’s activities in Ukraine and broaden the war to the European theatre.
I am a bit surprised it’ll be in Alaska, given all the bit about who’s going where.
I don’t think it’s hard to see the attraction of the Summit for the two sides, provided you don’t see it as an attempt to end the war or even organise a ceasefire.
For the Russians, it’s a chance to drive a wedge between Washington and Kiev, and between the US and Europe. For Trump, it’s about taking his ego for a walk and posing as an international statesman. He may also cling to the belief that he can do some kind of “deal.”
I’d just make the obvious point that usually months of preparation go into any meeting of Heads of State, so it’s wise to expect little if anything of substance, because there will be no time to prepare it.
Trump does seem to ‘wing it’ sometimes, preparation be damned. I think it would be wise to not rule out anything, I don’t think T’s and Ursula’s tariff agreements for the entire EU had a lot of preliminary background talks/agreements. I could be wrong on that.
There’s a difference though. Ursula was handling all the main negotiations and her incompetency once more arose. Trump went in knowing he had all the cards, read out his terms and that was basically it. A done deal. But with this meeting with Putin, it is now Russia that has the cards, not him. Trump has been frantically looking for some sort of leverage over Russia that he can use to make them do what he wants but has zip. He could go into what the Russians want and why but unfortunately he has the same level of curiosity that George W. Bush had which is also zip. Trump should know the 6 Ps-
‘Proper Preparation Prevents P*** Poor Performance.’
Zangezur is leverage. Nice north south trade route you got there, be a shame if anything happened to it. One of Vlad and Don may be prepared to trade. Perhaps Eurasian integration trumps Ukraine for Vlad?
Aurelian’s point about preparation is historically accurate. But. (And I know that this sounds like I’ve taken too much of a certain substance). What if Xi flies in to join Trump and VVP? Think of the visuals: the three kings figuring out all the world’s problems once and for all. And all thanks to DJT’s genius!
Trump does seem to ‘wing it’…
“The Art of the Deal” was mostly just a tribute to his wing it abilities.
Since the announcement I am holding my breath waiting for something great. Should I then expect to explore the blue spectrum of colours on my face? Just want to take the correct politico-aesthetic decision.
It would be remiss of me not to mention the possibility that the “summit” will take place on Sarah Palin’s back porch. Vlad Vladimirovich would feel positively at home there.
For extra political points, Putin could attend mass and celebrate the Dormition of the Theotokos at the nearest Russian Orthodox Church.
Win, win, win for the Russ.
“I can see Putin from my house”
Here’s hoping they don’t try to pull a Raisi on Putin’s plane. Or, if they do, that Putin’s successor isn’t the type that would send nukes back at us right away. Do we even know who would succeed Putin if he was Xed out?
By law, Mikhail Mishustin, the Prime Minister. A quiet doveish moderate economist and technocrat, although of course that means he has Medvedev’s former image along with his former position. If he were to suddenly become President, I imagine he would reinvent himself quickly. As far as nukes go, though, I’d be surprised.
Green Goblin is US puppet no different than any of the rotating puppets in Saigon from 1963 to 1975.
Russian Federation position on Green Goblin is he is not legitimate bc he running a catch 22 denial of any democratic constitutional processes in Kiev.
Trump looking for a new Minsk, no concern for any issue Russian Federation cares for.
Russia not done dissolving US weapons stocks…..
Here’s an exposé on the SBU’s CIA-style torture center: https://t.co/IyMI1BVC3P
The Tooze piece in the LRB is from 2019. It’s interesting for the nostalgic early TDS though.
LOL! Didn’t notice, got hot under the collar about Tooze’s lack of critical faculties. Can rest easy now, hope he wouldn’t write it all again!
Regarding the Novavax tweet, why doesn’t anybody doing science tweets link to the study or at least give a citation? Am I not reading these things correctly? Where is the source?
Click through to the quoted tweet by Daniel Park, the second one in the thread starts with a link to the study. I’m only on twitter through xcancel and rarely at that, but haven’t had issues getting sources from science tweets.
Sadly, we do have issues getting the Novavax covid vaccine though. We have all this data that it’s great. But unless you’re old or have a pre-existing condition, you’re not supposed to get it. And that’s on top of the already tightly controlled access to it before this approval. When we tried to get it earlier the CVS people made us jump through a ton of hoops before understanding my family really didn’t want the mRNA vaccines again.
Interesting about Novavax. I got my first Covid jab as soon as possible back in 2020, and faithfully kept up attendance at clinics whenever the (BC) provinical government sent me a reminder. Over the years I had at least one from just about everybody that could sell a vaccine in Canada.
At the same time I was reading more and more about mRNA but my mental calculus ran like this: I haven’t had “the vid” yet; my partner’s autoimmune context means she can’t handle much vaccinating; if she gets sick I’ll need to be able to get up on my feet and do for her; so I need to keep up some sort of protection and I guess I’ll just deal with the consequences. Hopefully.
Along the way I got one Novavax jab and of all of them that was absolutely the best in terms of aftereffects and overall comfort. I decided then to only ask for Novavax, but the damn province decided not to bring it in anymore and go all-in for mRNA. Not the place to tell all the stories but the BC Ministry of Health is really not relying on science but on public sympathies.
Well, I guess I’m back to dealing with the consequences. But five years on and I still haven’t had it. I mask and do other things — and glad to live in a place where the antivaxxers are polite at least face to face although they have “Freedom” stickers and Canadian flags all over their cars.
“Another Illegal Trump War Is Coming”
I think that somebody has been reading Tom Clancy’s book “Clear and Present Danger” and decided what a great idea it would be except to do it for real-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clear_and_Present_Danger
Thing is, those Cartels have probably loaded themselves up with weapons courtesy of the Ukraine. So what if they hit back? Lots of US soldiers in Central and South America to choose as retribution targets. What if they shot down a USAF plane on takeoff with a manpad. Assassinate soldiers on leave? Set off car bombs. I guess that the Trump government wants an easy win. Yemen broke their teeth. Russia is not quitting. China hit them back hard. Iran is too hard a nut to crack. They need a media victory to play to their base and make them forget about that Jeffrey person. So maybe they figure attacking the Cartels will be an easy win. After all, what could possibly go wrong?
Was it under Reagan or Bush 41 that the almighty US invaded Panama? I was probably in high school at that time, world events and national news just wasn’t my wheelhouse then. A simpler life it was.
If I remember my Clancy film version well enough, there is a classic interaction between Ryan and the deeply misguided deputy director. “The world is gray Jack!”
Reagan did Grenada. GHWB did Panama.
Maybe Trump will do “Grenada the sequel”?
Good chance of success and easy commute for the media.
Stage some boats sailing from Grenada to the USA with drugs on them.
Trump does have experience with staged wrestling events.
No matter how the cartel war is fought, it’s worse news for South of the border.
When things get even more past insanity, the release valve is a lot less open.
‘Stu thats all you get🇺🇸🇺🇸
@Boldyboy1975
Cat WWE💥🤣🤣🤣🤔’
Folks. If you are going to leave your cats home of a daytime, please make sure that you have the TV turned off and never, ever have it tuned to the channel showing all those vintage Kung Fu films.
It’s not about used cars, as much as about used batteries.
I can get the tesla hate, and it might be true that teslas have a faster and higher depreciation than other EV’s but the metric would be teslas’s vs all EV’s not tesla’s vs ICE
EV’s have a much higher depreciation than ICE cars in general.
Irish exporters ‘told to shut their mouths’ over Trump tariffs Irish Times.
The situation with olive oil is different. About 95% of olive oil in the US is imported. Most of it from Europe. Most of it from Spain. In April a 10% tariff was settled and now with the agreement it goes to 15%. Olive oil prices in the US will increase undoubtedly. To be sure I don’t care. I mean, if you wanna do business in a country like the US you have to bear the risks of unreliability. We might end with cheaper olive oil in Spain and I wouldn’t protest.
first time ive been to a Real Grocery Store(ie: HEB) in months was august 2nd.
olive oil has, indeed, gone way, way up…unknown if this is due to tariffs, or if thats still incoming.
i planted a few, at great expense, some 25 years ago…and immediately hard a hard freze that killed them.
but back then, i could only obtain varieties like arbequina and such that are not very cold tolerant.
to import a bare root slip of one of the more cold tolerant varieties, one had to allow APHIS to quarantine them for like 3 months.
now, theres a guy in Wimberly, Texas…maybe 60 miles to my southeast…who has done all that regulatory hassle and has essentially an olive nursury.
i know he got hit hard by the Big Freeze in february of 21…havent heard anything since.
if we finally slip into the permanent El Nino some weather nerds are predicting, i might get some more.
(La Nina is when i get the supercold events)
otherwise, i’ll hafta wait til the labor and capital appears to finish the Big Greenhouse(i’d like a couple of avocado trees in there, too…and some dwarf citrus)
It’s a pity your arbequina couldn’t make it. Those trees produce small but delicious olives and the oil is excellent.
Seconded! We keep a bottle of Arbequina and a bottle of Picual in the pantry for cold dishes.
Any old EVOO for cooked.
i recently heard a story about an old Egyptian guy in Toronto that figured out how to grow olive trees in his backyard. Not sure of the variety. His process involved creating a micro climate for the tree every winter with a lot of plastic sheeting, having the root ball completely insulated underground with rigid styrofoam and pluging in a heater on the especially frosty days in winter.
Rumour has it his olive oil is fantastic.
That article was confusing, as is the subject I suppose, what with the absurd unpredictability of the current trade regime. For one thing I don’t get how Irish dairy exports increased in the face of Trump’s first term tariffs.
The dollar and Euro float against each other – variations of 10% or more or common and built into exporters price models. So for a premium product (i.e. not particularly price sensitive), the extra tariff was already built into pricing models, so with good marketing and a steady nerve it didn’t affect sales of Irish butter. Tarrifs are (generally) predictable, unlike currency fluctuations.
Because European butter is great and American butter is terrible. And Irish butter is fantastic. All grassfed, although not necessarily in pastures :-(
Even industrial, branded Kerrygold.
The price of dairy land in Antrim is close to £25k/acre for the best land. That’s 3.5x the price here of rough grass in Devon (2.5x the best land).
Kremlin confirms that Putin-Trump summit to take place in Alaska on August 15 TASS
This location shocks me. I get that it is historically interesting in that we bought it from Russia, but to trust the US enough to meet on US soil when much of the deep state wants him dead?! No way! It is probably pretty safe for a US president to go to Russia. They don’t care who the president is. The guys in dark suits run the show.
This doesn’t seem true to me.
Same here. To my inexpert mind it seems like a high risk outing for Mr Putin. A truly courageous decision (in the sense that Sir Humphrey Appleby described a choice of Jim Hacker’s as being “courageous”).
And perhaps we should expect another US-coordinated missile attack on Russia, the night before the meeting, to “put pressure on Putin”.
I think that you might be right. That’s exactly the sort of thing that Trump would do as he thinks that that would give him leverage.
US senators sound alarm on DeepSeek’s security risks
*****
I assume that the real reason for them not liking DeepSeek is that its a foreign product that successfully completed with American products (like TikTok). Their goal, one of their goals anyway, is to have an American monopoly over this new technology. That would have been inevitable fifteen years ago, but it’s not now, and soon there will probably be other deepseeks.
I use AI as a coding assistant. I have not tried every AI, but I can confidently say that DeepSeek is more helpful than Twitter/Grok. The latter is more likely to give me code that doesn’t work and then less likely to be able to debug.
Anything from market based reporting that features terms from 2008 such as say, “Lehman Brothers” and also “collapse” is worth paying some measure of attention to. I don’t fully understand just yet what the issues or potentially poor outcomes include, but the concern about Bitcoin, Ethereum or generally the tokens and ongoing machinations just remind of the wonders brought forth from financial wizardry. FFS.
CDO. CDO Squared. “CDO Thirded.” Negative Amortization loans for residential homes. Some people in the markets, mostly the “visionary leader” types, just never do learn the right lessons, so let’s all “FAFO” and come what may.
While Trump Talks Peace, is the US Setting the Stage for More War? Larry Johnson. On latest Seymour Hersh article. Note that Hersh’s record on Russia-Ukraine is poor. Notice also:
*******
If the West loses Ukraine, but Armenia and Azerbaijan join NATO, doesn’t that count as a net loss for Russia (and Iran)?
I am certainly missing 99% of the information, but this seems like a great coup for the West.
It is a great coup for the west. But the people in Armenia and Azerbaijan should remember what happened after the great coup in the Ukraine in 2014. The west and Turkiye could literally set those countries on fire and just walk away and the Caucus will become the new battleground after the Ukraine folds.
Yes, this is much more likely than Armenia and Azerbaijan ever joining NATO.
And every countries’ projects are interrupted. Sadly, that all suits empires of chaos.
And I look around now at the fires burning and too many stock markets are still reaching for more highs.
Countries all around the world, every part of the world, getting more into surveillance and weapons. That seems to fit the empire’s grand vision for the future as well.
It’s tragedy.
What exactly was the Russian proposal for a new security architecture in Europe in 2021?
Could Vlad and Don produce a new version, with Russia and USA as guarantors of e.g. Ukraine, Caucasus etc.?
If anything ever comes out of this it won’t be a coup for The West. Whatever happens, Armenia is the big loser here and Pashinyan’s term may end prematurely. He has not only lost Karabakh, but seems to be losing Zanzegur, too. And has absolutely nothing to show for it.
One look at the geography of the area mean that NATO has about the snowballs chance in hell to achieve anything there – unless overextending to a non-defensible region counts as achievement.
One must remember that already Finland joining NATO created an unresolvable security problem for the alliance. Entering the Caucasus, where there’s no chance of challenging the domination of Russia or Iran, will not contain anybody, just create another unresolvable security issue for the alliance.
Considering that both Armenia and Azerbaijan are economically almost totally dependent on Russia and Iran, the nuisance capability of NATO in the area is on the level of a Chinese owned toll road in Quebec could affect USA or Canada.
Just thinking that three times more Azeris are living in Iran and Russia than in Azerbaijan, it’s hard to imagine any Western power can do much to ruin the long term relationships.
Thanks. Some of us are so old we can remember when Georgia was going to join NATO. Putin invaded and the rest is history.
Of course Trump may figure a US troop presence will prevent this so Putin may have to resort to a more subtle regime change. Trump will then threaten to obliterate Russia and somebody, maybe Melania, will have to give him a good slap to snap out of it.
And I recall that McCain, Graham, and a nunber of officials who should have known better initially liked Georgia’s chances initially
They told Saakashvili to go sic Russia and the US had Georgia’s back. And of course it didn’t.
Russia may want to regime change Ukraine first.
The main thing is to get US troops in there so no attack on it can take place. Otherwise the whole of both countries is within easy Oreshnik range from Rostov-on-Don. Once Ukraine is settled all those thumbing their noses at Russia will rue the day and could easlly become bumps under Russian tank tracks.
As Larry Johnson puts it:
“[R]ather than ratchet down tensions… Trump is signing off on a plan to continue the NATO encirclement of Russia. So yes, Trump is setting the stage for WW3 if he is serious about adding Armenia and Azerbaijan to NATO.”
Apparently you all did not read that ever-so informative Newsweek article on the ‘Trump Bridge’:
“Trump may be aiming to add this initiative to his Nobel Prize candidacy or simply to confirm his intention to establish peace in the world, but beyond personal motivations, for the region, this is really big and important,” Olesya Vartanyan, an expert in conflicts and security in the South Caucasus, told Newsweek.”
“This step forward—even without a final signature on a peace agreement—should increase the chances for stability and no war in the region for a longer period,” she added.”
If “experts” like Olesya Vartanyan tell us that this move “increases the chances of stability and no war,” then what’s not to like?
I did look her and the other “experts” quoted in this article up. She has the usual background in Soros and NED funded NGOs and “think tanks”, Radio Free Europe, etc. Oh, and she was also active as a “journalist” in Georgia during its conflict with Russia. So I’m sure she actually does have relevant “expertise” in this area.
Newsweek is now rumored to be a CIA mouthpiece as opposed to its former role of playing Pepsi to Time Magazine’s Coke.
And Trump has threatened 300 percent tariffs if he doesn’t get that Peace Prize–Nobel committee behind the eight ball.
A coin dealer I knew in LA bought a Nobel prize medal awarded in 1956 to one Sir Cyril Norman Hinshelwood, they are quite hefty!
The easy way out of this imbroglio is to buy a 2nd hand Nobel prize medal and make Benedict Donald think it’s for him~
Let’s see if the US Embassy in Armenia expands on all that land it is sitting on.
US Embassy will keep on expanding, and Armenia will keep on shrinking, until they become one. Then the universe will collapse on itself, or Kardashians will visit, or something equally important will happen.
Keeping an eye on it could be an indicator of how much of a future the USA thinks it has in the area.
In 1980 or so I was a fairly young logistics officer in USAF. I had been “in long enough” to be at the top of the list for “remote assignments”. Several of the choice locations on the list of overseas remote stations was in eastern Turkiye. I turned down a “staff” job in the middle of Turkiye.
The US/NATO has plans to establish a southern front into the Caucuses should a Fulda Gap attack take place. Those plans are funded and stocks are in Turkiye.
There remain a number of NATO bases in the area, same ones I could have seen in 1982….. There are two bases for fighter bombers, a base for large aircraft likley tankers and AWACS, a couple of site for air and missile defense with potenttail for THAAD deployment.
East Turkey facilities are somewhat like Thailand for US in 1960’s, somewhat superior to US potential in Rumania and Poland!
That said it is far away and Russia Iran have predominance in long range fires…. US lost in Vietnam more spectacularly than Kabul!
“Netanyahu, Aiming to Capture Gaza City, Reverts to a Failed Military Strategy”
I heard today that the IDF has a division or two fighting in Gaza but if Netanyahu wants the whole lot occupied, they will need six divisions to do so. Considering the number of IDF killed and the scores of thousands wounded plus those refusing to return to colours or have fled overseas or topped themselves or those suffering PTSD, will they have the numbers to rotate troops in and out? And that’s not counting the troops in Lebanon, Syria and the West bank. Trump and the west can send all the arms and ammo that they can but like the Ukraine, there may be a problem with manpower numbers. Sounds like the Gazans are a brick wall and Netanyahu is using the IDF to crash or crash through.
Saturday, Caturday. Meet Larry Richardson the scientific cat.
A link just because it is funny.
We can always use more humor.
Add to that, anyone who exposes the corruption of scientific research has my sincere respect.
Neat. Are the title’s of Larry’s articles clearly nonsense to someone who knows mathematics? I have a degree in physics but I couldn’t tell. Math papers can have weird titles.
“US to initially impose ‘small tariff’ on pharma imports, Trump says”
Trump wants the world to relocate their pharmaceutical industries to the US and I would say that by his timing, that he wants to have major deals announced just before the midterms so that he can tell his base that medical drugs will be cheaper now because of what he did. But as Big Pharma will take control over any pharmaceutical facilities re-located to the US, don’t count on them passing on any savings whatsoever. For them it will be business as usual.
Agree. The reason Americans shop “overseas” for medicines is because they are usually much cheaper than identical items sold through American companies.
The cynic in me views this as another turn of the Jackpot screw.
North American Deep South Nano Zeitgeist Report.
I was at the recently expanded Community Health Pharmacy, (where the poor people shop,) to pick up some anti-biotics for the tooth infection. I was number sixteen in line, (I counted.) Three of the people ahead of me in that line did not purchase their medicines because they could not afford the already cut-price pharmaceuticals. Admittedly anecdata, but three out of sixteen didn’t have the money needed. Putting my grade school mathematics skills to use, I come up with 3/16 = X/100, which works out to 18.75%. That’s a pretty large share of the population being forced to choose between basics.
Stay safe.
I hope your tooth feels better.
Thanks. It is lying quiescent while I try to figure out a work around to the medical rent extraction scheme I am faced with. I might have to go back to a dentist’s office I used fifteen years ago down in Slidell, Louisiana, some seventy-five miles away. (Would crossing State lines qualify as “medical tourism?”)
Stay safe over there on the West Coast.
One can hope he steps on the transfer pricing schemes that allow the pharmaceutical companies to recognize their profits in tax havens like Ireland. But I expect the lobbyists have already been busy heading that off.
Here is inside China doing a review on how this all works and who actually makes the parts that make up drugs.
Moving the assembly here will just make it cost even more without addressing the root issue. Same as it ever was
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hS0-ugYA-ko&t=604s
Meanwhile back in the year one
When you belonged to no one
You didn’t stand a chance, son
If your plans were undone
‘Cause you were bred, for narcissistity
And sold to society
One day you’ll wake up, in the present day
A million generations removed from expectations
Of being who you really want to be
Skating away, skating away, skating away
On the thin ice of the new day
So as you push off from the shore
Won’t you turn your head once more
And make your threats with everyone
For those who choose to stay
Will live just one more day
To do the things they should’ve done
And as you cross the wilderness
Spinning in your emptiness
If you have to, prey
Looking for a sign, that the evang menace
Has written you into their passion play
Skating away, skating away, skating away
On the thin ice of the new day
And as you cross the 200 day line
Well, the economy creaks behind
You’re a rabbit on the run
And the tariff splinters fly
In the corner of your eye
Shining in the setting sun
Well, do you ever get the feeling
That the story’s too damn real
And in the present tense?
Or that everybody’s on the stage
And it seems like you’re the only
Person sitting in the audience?
Skating away, skating away, skating away
On the thin ice of the new day
Skating away, skating away, skating away
Skating Away (On the Thin Ice of the New Day), by Jethro Tull
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfEnWvVJEzc&list=RDWfEnWvVJEzc
re: “the fascism” discourse
Inverted Fascism
by Ethan Bochicchio
August 8, 2025
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/inverted-fascism/
“(…)
In 2003, attempting to pin down the nature of neoconservatism, Sheldon Wolin offered the phrase “inverted totalitarianism.” He noted, while big business was subordinated to the state in Nazi Germany, Wolin pointed out, “corporate power has become so predominant in the political establishment, particularly in the Republican Party, and so dominant in its influence over policy, as to suggest a role inversion the exact opposite of the Nazis’.” While this analysis applies to Trump, Trump has added a level of nationalism, extraterritorial ambition, social conservatism, and a strain on legal, political, and constitutional norms that calls for a new term: inverted fascism.
(…)”
I hope I will find time to read Wolin for real, i.e. his footnotes. So far I am not convinced. To suggest “capital” was not dominating the Nazis but the other way around – while it is now dominating – which led to the term “inverted” – makes little sense.
To assume Nazis could have done against capital in the Weimar Republic is very questionable.
And to even suggest following is kinda odd on this level of discourse:
“(…)
To be clear, while inverted fascism is a useful term, I don’t expect the protesters in Los Angeles to yell at ICE agents that they are “inverted fascists!” In that situation, “fascist” should do.
(…)”
And:
“(…)
Trump’s peculiarities, and I’d argue those of Benjamin Netanyahu, Narendra Modi, and Viktor Orbán, should be thought of as representing the twenty-first century brand of fascism, not a deviation from fascism. Despite his politics differing massively from Adam Smith’s, we call someone like Hakeem Jeffries a liberal. It’s time we unfix the term fascism from its twentieth-century context.
(…)”
To put Netanyahu and Orban into the same category disqualifies the text to an extent. To “unfix” the term makes sense but with what result?
My understanding is that during WW2 the Allied governments exerted much more control over their economies than the Nazis did over Germany’s, and that Germany didn’t go on a full war footing until 1943. Several years ago I saw an interview with a former German general who said he was unable to get a civilian car factory converted for tank repair when Germany was already embroiled in the invasion of the USSR. Sounds like business leaders in Nazi Germany still had plenty of power.
Thanks for reminding. Indeed to my knowledge too (at least according to 1970s scholarship 🤔) over the course of WWII Germany used only 30% of the economy in war mode. unlike all other nations. Hitler knew that he would need the population´s support and therefore wanted them to feel as little of the war at home as possible. (Among various reasons).
Which would take us to the possible conclusion that it made not much sense to distinguish between capital and government the way Wolin does as both shared the same interests – they needed each other. After all it was a totalitarian system taking in all spaces of society.
And if we look at who survived 1945 and who did not then obviously the political branch was weaker than the economic.
As German sociologist Michael Hartmann points out in his latest study German economic elites have basically been the same families and cirlces over 150 years. Despite 2 world wars. That tells you who is essentially in the driver´s seat.
BERLINER ZEITUNG, July 6th 2025
“(…)
Mr. Hartmann, a total of 4,000 people in Germany make up the national elite. What kind of people are they?
Forty percent are members of the economic elite, 40 percent belong to politics, administration, the judiciary, and 20 percent to the media, academia, and the like. The scientific definition of the elite is: individuals who, by virtue of their office or, like the Quandt heirs or the Porsche and Piëch families, by virtue of their ownership, are in a position to significantly influence social developments.
You are argueing that an exclusive group of 4,000 people determines the country’s destiny, and they’ve been recruiting from the same 3 to 4 percent of the population for 150 years. You do realize that sounds like a conspiracy theory, right?
But it isn’t. I’m not saying they all know each other. I’m saying they’re always recruited from the same pool, and social background plays a crucial role in determining how a person thinks about social problems, such as social injustice or taxes. In our large 2012 elite study, elite members who come from working-class families, even those who hold high positions in the economy, answered the question about higher taxes by advocating for higher taxes. The wealthier the elite members grew up, the more vehemently they opposed higher taxes. In other words, certain ways of thinking and attitudes come with background. That’s the politically explosive aspect.
(…)”
see (with paywall) https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/kultur-vergnuegen/elitenforscher-michael-hartmann-ein-guter-deutscher-manager-muss-gross-sein-li.2338266
These strata were quintessentially the backbone of the 2 empires and Weimar in between.
Which was the very entity that intended to upset the world order of supreme colonial powers.
If that were inverted fascism then inverted fascism was a feature of the German empire since 1871.
p.s. A 1966 study in German published by the “Institut für Zeitgeschichte” in Munich which I have not yet checked on the topic of German war economy is here, by British historian Alan Milward:
download the issue No.1 of 1966 (of course Milward´s English original must be somewhere…)
“FRITZ TODT ALS MINISTER FÜR BEWAFFNUNG UND MUNITION” / “FRITZ TODT AS MINISTER OF ARMS AND AMMUNITION” by Alan S. Milward
https://www.ifz-muenchen.de/vfz-archiv/
Would Hjalmar Schacht agree?
Good question. (Or is that rhetorical?)
re: JACOBIN NYC conference announced
Socialism in Our Time: A Jacobin Conference
On Saturday, September 13, join us for a one-day conference in New York City marking 15 years of Jacobin magazine.
https://jacobin.com/2025/07/socialism-in-our-time-a-jacobin-conference
“New executive order puts all grants under political control”
‘On Thursday, the Trump administration issued an executive order asserting political control over grant funding, including all federally supported research. The order requires that any announcement of funding opportunities be reviewed by the head of the agency or someone they designate, which means a political appointee will have the ultimate say over what areas of science the US funds. Individual grants will also require clearance from a political appointee and “must, where applicable, demonstrably advance the President’s policy priorities.” ‘
For once, I’m out of words.
Par for the course for a Robber Baron Administration. In Ye Olde Days it was known as the “Spoils System.”
Unfortunately, this iteration of the grift does not rise to the level of “Honest Graft.”
Where oh where are you Cincinnatus?
right here, on the farm…and here i will remain.
someone asked, after i had retired, a couple of weeks ago about what happened to the county attempting to pry me out of my routine and appoint me as a commisioner.
well…lol…i suspect that they sent such feelers out to a few people…i also suspect that my out and proud anarcho-socialism, big painting of FDR, and wild ideas about autarky and local ag…may have disqualified me from consideration.
Or use the robber barons to fund the Chairs in Economics at Ivy League universities (and to some extent Oxbridge) PROVIDED they taught Marxism as the competitor to capitalism, and no Georgism allowed.
They knew which enemy they could overcome and which they couldn’t right back then. Adam Smith and David Ricardo were turning in their graves. The rentiers had won.
In US the congress controls the purse!
When the president decides to withhold appropriated money he usually goes to congress to get a “recission”.
If the rules Trump imposes are not in the bill…..
I am sometimes skeptical of Thomas Fazi, and I don’t mean to praise with faint damnation, but today he turns over this platform at Benedetta Sabene, who bases part of her essay on a brilliant essay by a woman writing as “bea.”
Fazi:
https://www.thomasfazi.com/p/instagram-has-killed-the-intellectual?
Sabene in italiano:
https://benedettasabene.substack.com/p/instagram-ha-ucciso-gli-intellettuali
Bea:
https://thedigitalmeadow.substack.com/p/the-death-of-the-public-intellectual
Sabene makes a brilliant point: We have gone from public intellectuals, and she mentions the important post-war Italian public intellectual, still highly regarded, Pier Paolo Pasolini, to discourse based on speed. The audience has changed from an audience used to reading to an audience used to visuals and quick takes.
Those of us brought up in the world of books, which is anyone over about 45 years of age, think about things differently. Luckily, Sabene points out that the book culture leads to better understanding of complexity.
So the change in intellectual debate and in audience expectations is part of what is causing the irrationality and panic (and, I’d argue, increased malign religiosity) in much of the Anglosphere.
Here in Italy, we will contend with the fall of Fedez and of Ferragni and the scandal of the pink panettoni…
PS: A note on the choice of Alaska for the Putin-Trump gabfest. It isn’t peace talks just yet, folks. Trump offered Roma, which is a logical place, because Francesco (and presumably Leone) have also offered Roma. But the pressure on Italian politicians to conform has miffed the Russians. President Mattarella, who truly should know better, compared the Russians to Nazis. Giorgia Meloni has been all over the place, politically. And vultures like Pina Picierno and Carlo Calenda have been blabbing about Give War a Chance.
PPS: Too bad. The Italian populace is politically unreliable, at least from the Ursuline point of view. The Italians are the most pro-Russian of the big countries of Western Europe. The populace would have supported the talks — but who listens to the people when Pina Picierno is having a meltdown about Russian orchestral conductors?
And to lighten things up, the timeless singer of rebetiko, Marió, with “Even God Smokes Hashish.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=583nKNDsJec
Thanks for those links DJG. I enjoyed both takes, and was glad to see that “Bea” put in a qualifier about the Buckley/Vidal debate –
“The debates between William F. Buckley Jr. and Gore Vidal at the 1968 National Convention’s, though infamous for their personal insults and heated exchanges, still reflect the intellectual and ideological sphere at the time. While the debates often strayed from true substance, it captured the public’s attention and had a lasting impact on political discourse.”
That debate was also a cultural turning point, much like MTV or social media. The intellectual heft of the combatants is undeniable, especially compared to most anything on offer as political debate today (I do miss Bill Moyers). But it was only fairly recently that I learned from the documentary Best of Enemies how the debate came to be. ABC was dead last in the ratings and needed something to get out of the rut and draw in some viewers. The debate was designed to capture public attention by pitting two people who couldn’t stand each other on stage together. It was done not so much to enlighten the public, but to get ratings for ABC. One could make a good argument that Buckley/Vidal broke the ground that made possible the much maligned “debates” we see today with a half dozen or so talking heads yelling over each other.
Regardless of how things turned out though, for my money Vidal was the greatest public intellectual of the 2nd half of the 20th century. It’s hard to read his books on Aaron Burr, Julian the Apostate, or his conversations with Timothy McVeigh without changing the way you look at the world. Many contemporary cultural oxen were gored by his incomparable wit decades ago. Doesn’t anyone remember Myra Breckenridge these days?
Thanks also for the Mario tune, a rebitiko singer I was not familiar with. Here’s another hashish themed tune I learned recently (which describes a lot of rebetika!) – Όταν καπνίζει ο λουλάς
I just read Myra Breckinridge not that long ago.
I’d say Vidal’s true calling was as an essayist but don’t forget he was also a playwright and movie and TV writer–versatile.
What I remember about the debates was Buckley ranting and Vidal smirking as he did so. He really got Buckley’s goat. He thought Buckley was a poseur and a me too on that.
JD Vance and the redistricting clown show came to Indiana this past week and our wonderful Gov. Mike “will do anything trump says” Braun is all for it. (Note: they held the meeting behind closed doors and even put pipe and drape over the doors so you couldn’t see who was in there when the doors opened/closed)
Mind you – Indiana is a 7-2 split, with the only Dem seats being Indianapolis and Gary (south Chicago)
The only way to do what they want is hack the cities into pieces and completely eliminate any opposition (the local state government is a republican super majority)
Would love a system where my vote actually counts, but like millions (all over the spectrum) it just doesn’t
I feel like I should say something about the CDC shooting in Atlanta yesterday.
According to numerous news reports coming out now, it appears the shooter was an individual who had been diagnosed as having been harmed by the COVID vaccine. Little additional information is being discussed at this time. Reporters have apparently confirmed this fact with the family members. Of course, in such a breaking story, facts and issues are bound to be reported incorrectly in the fog of the first several hours after the incident.
If this turns out to be true, I would be completely unsurprised. I would say I am dealing with the lingering affects of rage in many young men, not so much for being injured although there are a few of them in my practice, but the complete rage at the the Dems and the Biden Administration for the vaccine mandates and the loss of job and the radical change in life trajectory this caused for so many. When I say rage, I mean rage. The absolutely refusal of the Dems to even acknowledge this is beyond words. They have taken all kinds of actually damaged people that were in their base and countless family members and turned them into haters. This mandate decision was the most craven and stupid thing I have ever seen in my life in medicine. MONTHS AND MONTHS before September 2021 when this was done ( look at this very website) it was clear that these vaccines were not sterilizing. In scientific terms that instantly negated any affect of a widespread vaccine mandate program. It made zero sense then and it makes zero sense now. The medical advisers in the White House according to what they are saying now absolutely knew this. One is left with the feeling that it was all done at the behest of Big Pharma. As more and more comes out, there is absolutely no mystery in my mind as to the reason for the rage. And I do not even dispute this with the patients. I have instead done my very best to redirect their rage as best we can into something more productive. This begins with ACKNOWLEDGEMENT of the problem – something the vast majority of my profession to this day refuses to do.
I have shared with the COVID group behind the scenes here several devastating possible vaccine injuries. These are things that have been diagnosed in big academic centers. I am not going to go through the details. Suffice it to say, I am concerned about this being a real issue. But because of the complete ham-handed manner in which this was handled by the Biden Administration, Wolensky, Fauci et al – more than two thirds of the country strongly feel there is some kind of cover-up or lying. Again, why wouldn’t they? None of these issues were allowed to be aired out in the open. No debate. No questions. No comparing data. THE KINDS OF TRAGEDIES THAT HAPPENED YESTERDAY ARE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DO THAT AND HAVE GUNS FREELY FLOWING IN YOUR SOCIETY. I hate violence and I hate what happened yesterday – it should never happen – but I have seen the potential in my own patients, I have been talking about this on here for years, I have heard this from all kinds of colleagues – and the continued answer from the authorities is just to ignore it. They are all just dumb MAGA people after all. Well, actually they aren’t. So many of the people involved at least in my world were bread and butter Dems who now hate every bit of the them. It is interesting this is all happening after so many on the Dem side ( I do not call them Left ) are valorizing Luigi. They have no moral standing now to say a word.
One final note – it is interesting that by far and away the single most common vaccine injury I see is tinnitus, ringing in the ears. I have no doubt it had everything to do with the vaccine in so many of these people. It is very difficult to dispute when patient after patient tells you the tinnitus started within hours of the vaccine administration. Over and over and over again I hear this. Let me tell you something – tinnitus, and especially the kind involved in this injury I am seeing, is at times horrifically severe. IT CAN GO UP TO THE POINT OF BEING PSYCHOSIS INDUCING. Ask Vincent VanGogh’s ear.
The entire 5 years of public health and medical leadership in this country have been an absolute disaster. In almost every way, they completely repudiated their own lessons from history. They completely repudiated what we know about human behavior and the behavior of crowds. It was dumbfounding for those of us who watched them doing this in real time – knowing in our hearts that the work of generations was being incinerated – but also the enormous consequences. My profession has over the past 20 years handed over willingly its beating heart of ethics to Big Pharma, Big Hospital, and Big Insurance and now private equity. The enormous epochal consequences of this are now laid out for all to see – and the consequences will become larger and larger the longer we continue down this road.
The reputations of this profession and public health have been altered for a generation. I spend much time with my students discussing this. They are the ones who will be tasked to fix this.
Consequences.
I have not been in Boston, aside from dropping and picking up at Logan airport, since their mayor made covid vaccines mandatory…..
Second, I have not supported/donated anything at my college since they required the shots.
But, I am not a young man was retired by the plague and not harmed by taking the first moderna series.
i didnt know tinnitus was a side effect, so thanks.
ive had it…very mild, almost not noticeable…for a long time(something to do with guitar amps, i suppose).
and while i cannot temporally connect it to the moderna shots…the tinnitus has been horrible since around that time.
at the time, i went ahead and got the shot, then a booster, for the sake of my wife…then fighting cancer…chemo=stunted immune system, etc.
the chaos of those years is why i cant connect the worse tinnitus 1:1 with the shots…
wierdly, the ringing in my ears is in the exact frequency range of the sounds my fone can make…so i had to download an old ma bell ringtone, so i can sorta hear my phone ring.
what i can say for sure, however, is from the second time i had covid, feb 22, i have constant sinus problems…like the worst allergies, evah.
its like the Texas Cedar Fever…but year round.
i connect this directly to covid, because thats when it started, and its never ended.
and i agree with everything else you have to say, re: Dems…luigi, et al are too good for them…and i’ll likely never bother to vote, again.
Fie.
I’ve had tinnitus for over a decade now so can’t blame it on vaccines either. Plus my irrational fear of needles made me opt for the J&J one and done jab. I wouldn’t have gotten any rona vaccine at all but of course my company practices the HR liberalism and I would have been fired if I hadn’t gotten one. I hadn’t heard of this side effect either and now I’m wondering if it’s just a side effect of the mRNA type vaccines.
Side note: the frequency of my tinnitus is apparently identical to the high pitched warble of certain tiny songbirds. I’ve missed out on some trilling from the trees that my better half can hear just fine.
I got lucky. I believe I got one Pfizer shot, saw the headlines about cardiac issues, and opted to avoid anymore vaccination. Except for a tetanus shot and the MMR, I have avoided all vaccines like the plague. I’m not afraid to say I’m part of that growing number of angry young men, even if I’m not as young anymore.
It’s the hypocrisy. It’s the bizarre righteousness of liberals in their Covid response their their beloved Joe Biden that I will never forget. They didn’t really do anything different than Trump. They helped kill hundreds of thousands with utter neglect. That is something you never forgive.
Yep, people that don’t have it — I do, but from unfortunate life choices and such — have no idea what life is like with it. It’s unimaginable until you have it. And in the over 25 years I’ve had it, there’s been as near as I can tell no relevant progress on any treatment. But we have weight loss drugs galore!
aye! i spend much of my nonworking time on a barstump in front of a fan.
its when i wake up, and want to enjoy the silence that is inherent out here, that i notice it.
and its louder if im hurting.
i mean, im on a barstump in front of a fan right now…and i can still hear it…loud music drives it away..but also alerts my mother that i might be enjoying myself,lol.
when my bones wake me at 1 or 2 am and i blindly go make coffeee…that sound is what often keeps me up.
I had low level tinnitus from working around airliners even though I used good ear plugs and ear muffs and had annual hearing tests/personal protective equipment training. The J&J vaccine jacked the tinnitus volume up to 10.
If I am in a office with medium or loud HVAC background volume it either sounds like there is a brass/marching band in the next room or music is being played in the next door apartment. You can’t catch the tune but you hear it being played.
Having a fan in the bedroom that moves air around and makes a moderate amount of noise helps a lot for sleeping with tinnitus.
I can understand how some people can no longer cope with it, like people with chronic back pain.
Thanks much, IM Doc. Though most here will find a reason to undo the US 2nd Amendment I’m not so sure that’s a good response.
“THE KINDS OF TRAGEDIES THAT HAPPENED YESTERDAY ARE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DO THAT AND HAVE GUNS FREELY FLOWING IN YOUR SOCIETY. I hate violence and I hate what happened yesterday – it should never happen – but I have seen the potential in my own patients, ”
I guess I mean, what sounds like a dangerously strong pushback by force might be the only ‘officially’ recognized response worth responding to. (I know this sounds silly.)
Still, and even so, it does get a response which many might regard as “about time.” The plebs with force can command attention to difficulties the plebs without force cannot command. Or something like that. And going on to long, I know, the US 2nd amendment is there to guarantee the 1st Amendment. (And yes, I know most US readers will mistakenly discount this comment as archaic.)
“i am with you in Rockland”, Flora.
feed them to the poor they have created.
Not arguing with this one bit, but I think it has happened across most of the major industries in the West. Leaders who used to have technical knowledge and ethics have been largely replaced by MBAs who see everything in society as an “investment.”
Obviously this is unsustainable and horrible.
We will be very lucky if the damage is repaired in one generation. My wife works in education, and I have come to realize that in our society, a torch is passed from one generation to the next every 25 years or so through the education system. If something keeps some part of the torch from being passed even once, then crucial information in human society is lost forever. There is no innate reason something will come back after being lost.
The whole arrangement and by which society propagates itself is extremely fragile and is not self-correcting.
I sometimes wonder about other damage caused by those vaccines. I know someone who experiences mental problems and things really got worse for him about five years ago – about a fortnight after having the Pfizer vaccines. Sure it could be a coincidence but you do have to wonder. But I sure as hell am not going to ask a doctor about that. They would look at you then like you have grown a second head or something if I did.
I was lucky then. In less than half an hour after the “second dose”, I got a strong metallic taste in my mouth that lasted for about four days.
The report about the shooting I saw said the shooter “claimed” he had been injured. You’ll never see the mainstream admitting that the vaccines may have been flawed or questionable.
But then they don’t object very much to Gaza either.
And it’s not just the Dems. The Fox news crew running the country now are just a lot clumsier in their lying.
ChatGPT as a Narcissus Mirror – Neofeudal Review
Much more in-depth explanation than what I described as it being like the student that studies the teacher more than the subject matter of the class.
Imagine writing becoming like so much contemporary pop music, which is harder and harder to place within a specific time period. Nostalgic yet ahistorical…if that makes sense.
But I digress.
Based on what’s described in the article: ChatGPT can’t be like the human mind, but it can accelerate any tendency for its self-destruction.
thats prolly the scariest thing ive read about these egregores, to date.
and while reading it…i kept thinking about all these “women” who keep trying to chat me up on the faceborg messenger thing. the Tell, for me, is never being willing to switch to real time voice communication.
i am as far from a techie as one can be these days…but why have some nigerian guy spend months(my 1st dating app experience) talking to a lonely old widower in the wilderness, when an AI can do it for almost free?
what a world.
>Why struggling companies are loading up on bitcoin
Companies that are not doing well financially may engage in fraudulent activities. If you notice that the company you’re investing in is buying cryptocurrency, sell your shares immediately.
It’s like more companies becoming like GameStop.
Airdrop over Gaza, filmed from the ground (30-sec video):
https://seed122.bitchute.com/nnwlaOOuDM1W/FqTuYraSYId1.mp4
You can see that even with a parachute affixed the aid pallets fall quickly and land with a ground-shaking thud.
This isn’t the Berlin Airlift, just PR– a stalling-tactic: a trickle of aid when it’s the blockade that should be broken.
Horse racing has been dying for decades, its the fastest non mechanical pursuit out there, but suffers from the 30 minute lag between races.
You can deal a 6 deck shoe worth of blackjack cards @ a Vegas casino for 30 minutes straight-in comparison.
The big event aside from the Triple Crown races is the Breeders Cup which is a series of races-as opposed to just 1 in each of the Triple Crown contests. It’s scheduled for Del Mar over Halloween, and what really makes the ‘oval office’ tick is the approx 100% Hispanic workers in the backstretch stable areas.
Trump really has it in for Cali, and what a splash he’d make if ICE was to show up and cause a fuss by taking them all away.
Can you get a noble peace prize while simultaneously facilitating genocide?
Fellow Chris,
Our dearest leader is trying to trademark a quadruple threat peace prize application: supporting genocide (Death), illegally supporting multiple wars (War), starving children at home and abroad (Famine), and spreading disease from lack of attention (Plague). Trump will earn his peace prize with the four riders of the apocalypse standing behind him.
What happens if the Nobel committee promise Trump his peace prize – so long as he halts the genocide. Then he has to choose between his ego and his loyalty to Bibi. I’m not sure who would win.
Only one of them has compromat though so I’m guessing he’ll follow the guy who gave him the Golden Pager as a “joke”.
Kissinger got a Nobel Peace Prize, why not Trump…just promise the committee members fresh new kidneys from Gaza when they need one.
Make it a twofer with Bibi and he’ll throw in some eyeballs.!
There is the stench of cancerous rot at the heart of Starmer’s government. He is obviously a top contender for the Nobel Peace Prize and he should be awarded it so he will be able to clutch at it for comfort when the murderous bastard is made to stand trial for his complicity in the genocide in Gaza.
My government holds no brief for liberty anymore. The members of this “Labour” government are as bent , politically corrupt and morally degenerate as any flock of Zionazis and the US politicians Epstein compromised on their behalf.
A day of absolute shame and horror as the Zionazis freedom to murder becomes of greater importance to this bought government than the maintainace of the English tradition of liberty, a tradition for which my closest relatives on both sides of my family fought two World War, and some of them remained to lie in the ground that they made sacred with their blood in the fight for liberty from the Nazis. And now they govern us: https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/as-hundreds-committed-the-offence-of-putting-ink-to-cardboard-police-moved-in
LRB has an article about the great David Graeber, who I never would have discovered without NC in general and Lambert in particular.
Pro tip, use reader view to escape the ay-pay all-way.
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n14/richard-seymour/baseline-communism
thanks!
long read
Marx and Communal Society
by John Bellamy Foster
https://monthlyreview.org/2025/07/01/marx-and-communal-society/
Good one as well!
I am on a mini-crusade to use the phrase “the communism of everyday life” as often as possible.
“mini-crusade”
Did you already conquer “anyone”?
Or only inflict defeat and then moved on.
Great find, thank you for this.