God Dog n+1
Celestial Detector: Weighing Lives from Below E-Flux
Climate/Environment
Building toward disaster: Growth collides with rising seas in Charleston Floodlight
California lawmakers pass measures to expand oil production in Central Valley, restrict offshore drilling Los Angeles Times
Liberté, égalité, radioactivité Works in Progress
Trump sends fracking CEO to Europe to sell climate denial—and gas HEATED
Nepal
Nepal PM seeks calm, promises to meet protesters’ push to ‘end corruption’ Al Jazeera
Sri Lanka’s crisis shows how debt is devouring the Global South Al Jazeera
China?
Tariffs and TikTok to dominate another round of US-China trade talks Yahoo! Finance
China Probes U.S. Chip Sector On Eve Of Trade Talks Investor’s Business Daily
China’s trade with Africa outracing the rest of world, supplanting North America Kevin Walmsley
Not So Neatly Divided: Global Public Opinion on China Asia Society
China’s Green Leap Outward: The rapid scale- up of overseas Chinese clean-tech manufacturing investments Net Zero Policy Lab
Is China’s High Speed Railway System Massively Overbuilt, just Overbuilt, or will be Overbuilt? JRUrbaneNetwork
Shanghai Cooperation Organization
Finance Minister Siluanov: The SCO Will Create a Depository to Replace Euroclear and Clearstream Karl Sanchez
The Lucky Country
Old Blighty
Britain’s largest far-right protest capitalises on Starmer’s xenophobic, anti-working-class agenda WSWS
Starmer tells Tommy Robinson he ‘will not surrender’ British flag to violence The Telegraph
Musk warns ‘violence is coming to you’ RT
It’s Your Party and I’ll Cry If I Want To Craig Murray
Africa
Exclusive-Congo-Rwanda draft deal outlines role of US, others in revamp of minerals sector Reuters
Syraqistan
300,000 Palestinians Forced To Flee as Israeli Strikes Pound Gaza City Antiwar
Israel launches ‘most violent’ strikes on Gaza since 7 October The Cradle
Everything is out of control, the city is burning completely, completely.
Gaza💔💔 pic.twitter.com/bUglsMOeWW
— Dr.Hamza Alsharif 🇵🇸 (@Hamzasharif5750) September 14, 2025
Another day in occupied politics, another humiliation ritual. Marco Rubio and Mike Huckabee land in Al-Quds and immediately line up beside Netanyahu and the clerics of the Zionist entity, bowing at the so-called “Western Wall.”
What passes for pilgrimage here isn’t faith but… pic.twitter.com/c00UNXOe6L
— Thomas Keith (@iwasnevrhere_) September 14, 2025
🚨🇺🇸🇮🇱 BREAKING: Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) confirms that President Trump “FEARS FOR HIS LIFE because of ISRAEL”
His White House sources also exposed that ISRAELI INTELLIGENCE was caught placing “electronic devices” on the emergency vehicles of Trump’s Secret Service pic.twitter.com/FZLA7tXSME
— Legitimate Targets (@LegitTargets) September 14, 2025
Zionist Lawfare Operation Facing Collapse? Kit Klarenberg
1st Tunisian ship departs as part of Gaza-bound aid flotilla to break Israeli siege Anadolu Agency
***
Sharaa says agreement with Moscow enabled swift fall of Assad The Cradle
European Disunion
Germany: Merz’s CDU set to win in NRW, AfD makes big gains DW
EU counterterrorism chief: Let cops read WhatsApp chats Politico
New Not-So-Cold War
Kyiv puts defence needs for 2026 at $120 billion – even if Russia’s war ends Euractiv
Ukraine strikes one of Russia’s top oil refineries, causing explosions and sparking fire Euronews
Romania says a drone breached its airspace during Russian strikes on Ukraine France 24
Trump Finally Outwits Europe and the Neocons on Ukraine? Simplicius
Hungary and Slovakia must quit Russian gas and nuclear, Trump envoy warns Politico
Speaking this weekend at the Yalta European Security Conference in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, U.S. Special Envoy to Ukraine, Ret. Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, stated that Russia is losing in its ongoing war against Ukraine, “If he [Putin] was winning, he’d be in Kyiv. If he was… pic.twitter.com/5FkyrQ4VD3
— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) September 15, 2025
Five-year-old Russian child listed on Ukraine’s database of unwanted persons TASS. Also known as the “kill list.”
Cruise Missile Launchers Guarding the Russian Arctic Strike Simulated Adversaries During Exercises Military Watch
Russian and Belarusian Air Defences Jointly Repel Simulated Western Attack Military Watch
Weimar Republic
Utah governor says suspect in Charlie Kirk assassination is not cooperating with authorities CBS News
Gov. Cox provides update on Charlie Kirk shooting investigation, including new details about suspect’s roommate Salt Lake Tribune
Reflections on Violence Unpopular Front
Bullets and Ballots: The Legacy of Charlie Kirk The Scholar’s Stage
***
2 arrested after explosive found under news media vehicle in Salt Lake City KSLTV5
Imperial Collapse Watch
Decline and Fall Arthur Goldhammer
Bluff and Counter Bluff en route to the Guillotine Oliver Boyd-Barrett
Accelerationists
The Stories We Tell Hauntologies by Elia Ayoub
South of the Border
F-35s Arrive In Puerto Rico For Counter-Drug Operation The War Zone. Apparently we’re meant to believe the vaunted F-35s gonna do what a half century of the war on drugs couldn’t.
The invention of “Venezuela drugs” The Anti-Empire Project
Venezuela Denounces US Navy for Illegal Boarding of Fishing Boat in Venezuelan Exclusive Economic Zone Orinoco Tribune
Trump 2.0
SEC to notify businesses of technical violations before taking action, FT reports Reuters
Police State Watch
NEW BILL WOULD GIVE MARCO RUBIO “THOUGHT POLICE” POWER TO REVOKE U.S. PASSPORTS The Intercept
Workers taken to hospital after FBI uses furnace to burn seized meth BBC
Our Famously Free Press
Trump shares call for media ‘accountability’ with ‘Charlie Kirk Act’ after shooting The Independent
It’s probably worth flagging the fact that the president of the United States is promoting the establishment of a Ministry of Truth to restrict speech in a suggested law called the “Charlie Kirk Act”.
President Trump’s Truth Social account posted a viral video from TikTok on… pic.twitter.com/CZSdYuCPAg
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) September 14, 2025
Antitrust
Monopoly Round-Up: Did the Death Blow of Hollywood Just Happen? BIG by Matt Stoller
Healthcare?
Appeals ruling threatens routine care access for Medicaid enrollees at Planned Parenthood Ohio Capital Journal
Immigration
1/ A repatriated Korean worker from the Hyundai-LG battery factory secretly wrote a detention diary about their 7-day experience in ICE custody in Georgia. The worker says ICE officers mocked them with words like as “North Korea” and “Rocket Man” despite holding a business visa. https://t.co/1TfpaYRgVu
— Raphael Rashid (@koryodynasty) September 14, 2025
Big Brother Is Watching You Watch
The Eyes of Chihuahua Texas Observer
AI
Understanding AI as a social technology Programmable Mutter
Chinese tech scientists have jumped ahead of US counterparts in global downloads of open-source AI programs. “As hard as it is for us all to swallow, I think we’re behind now,” said Ali Farhadi of Seattle’s Allen Institute for ai, quoted in the Economist. 1/7 pic.twitter.com/4ey6pkACbo
— Nury Vittachi (@NuryVittachi) September 15, 2025
The Friendly Skies
Toxic Fumes Are Leaking Into Airplanes, Sickening Crews and Passengers WSJ
Guillotine Watch
Fox News host apologizes for ‘extremely callous’ remarks on unhoused people The Guardian
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
169 comments
Comments are closed.
Great antidote, a guide dog to the Underworld. Foreshadowing it certainly is.
Supposedly the hound in the photo was a Siamese Trio Dog, and 2 other heads were successfully removed. They did such a good job on the operation that you’d never know.
Cerberus is such a good boi.
A man wanted a big, veracious dog to protect his business, so he visited a kennel that specialized in attack dogs. The man explained to the kennel owner that he wanted the biggest, meanest, most vicious dog in the kennel, and the owner offered to take the man on a tour of the premises.
After they had been walking for a few minutes, they came upon a large dog. He was snarling loudly, biting and clawing at the cage.
“He looks like he’d be a pretty good attack dog,” said the buyer.
“Well, he’s not bad,” replied the owner, “but I have something better in mind for you.”
They continued walking around the premises, and after a while they found an even larger, meaner dog than the first. He snarled at the two men and tried to bite them through the wire on his cage.
“Ah,” said the buyer, “This must be the dog you were referring to earlier.
“Well, no.” said the owner. “I have something better in mind for you,” and the men continued their tour.
Eventually, they came upon a fairly large dog that was lying quietly on his side, licking his butt. He did not seem to notice as the men approached.
“This is the dog I had in mind for you,” said the owner.
The buyer was flabbergasted. “You’re joking!” he exclaimed. “This dog seems quite tame; he doesn’t act at all like an attack dog at all. Hell, he’s just lying there, licking his butt!”
“I know, I know,” said the owner. “But you see, he just ate a lawyer, and he’s trying to get the taste out of his mouth.”
That’s no antidote. Whatever it is, it’s scary.
In the God Dog n+1 it says:
Isn’t that supposed to be conformation and not confirmation? As in, conforming to the breed standard.
Yes.
I think our dog is a Mexican Xoloitzcuintle, beloved by the indigenous peoples there. There are all kinds of myths and legends around this pre-Columbian breed who is one of the most ancient specimens in the canine family tree.
Looks like you’re right. Amazing. Omg now I need to go to Mexico to meet some.
I was thinking Anubis the jackal god…
‘OSINTdefender
@sentdefender
Speaking this weekend at the Yalta European Security Conference in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, U.S. Special Envoy to Ukraine, Ret. Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, stated that Russia is losing in its ongoing war against Ukraine, “If he [Putin] was winning, he’d be in Kyiv. If he was winning, he’d be west of the Dnipro River. If he was winning, he’d be in Odesa. If he was winning, he’d have changed the government. Russia is in fact losing this war.” With Gen. Kellogg adding’
Well that’s it then. The US and the west can forget all about this war. Russia is losing so they can put the whole thing out of their pretty minds until Russia comes begging for terms. Glad Kellog got that sorted out.
Well let’s just hang on a minute. In other news Kyiv puts their defense needs for 2026 at 120 billion dollars. An astronomically large figure for an Ukrainian economy with an annual GDP of only around 200 billion, gross external debt of 190 billion (99% of which is denominated in foreign currencies), and twin budget and current account deficits of perhaps 40 billion. So, judging from those figures, the West might still want to pass the hat around a time or two more before calling this one as “in the bag”.
Absolutely pathetic! This Kellogg clown is just another hack like Jake Sullivan and Lloyd Austin.
Why is their go-to move always “the Big Lie?”
Just what kind of flake is kellogg? Anybody? Wukchumni?
Sorry, but that sort of Nutty Goodness just goes against the grain.
I’ve never heard of Kellogg, but am aware of Battle Creek.
Also, his English is poor. He should have said, “If he were winning…”
Kellogg was actually repeating what Zelensky said recently. That as Russia had not taken Kiev, then it is not winning the war. The man is a muppet.
He’s not knowingly repeating what Zelensky said recently. They just have the same scripwriter.
P.S. You would not call him a muppet if you were in the UK. :)
What, and get myself arrested by a Starm Trooper? Thank you, no thank you.
Ah, but that “found footage” program on GBN, “The Blair Last Ditch Project.”
Zelensky is more of a Feeble than a Muppet anyway.
There must be a joke here about Cookie Monster Nuland, Cereal Muppet Kellogg, the Puppet Chicken of Kiev, and the whole menagerie, but I can’t quite work it out.
Rest secure that this is another “educational” production of the Children’s Television Workshop. That’s the demographic it is aimed at.
Can you imagine Count Von Putin counting down the HIMARS and Patriot batteries destroyed?
“One! One HIMARS battery destroyed! Hahahaha! Two! Two HIMARS batteries destroyed! Ah yes! Enjoy, my children of the night!” (Howling heard in the distance.)
U.S. Special Envoy to Ukraine, Ret. Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, added that breakfast is indeed the most important meal of the day.
Goooooooooood Moooooooooooooourning Fiatnam!
Seeing as the proposed Charlie Kirk Act would snap up ‘content creators’ in its Ministry of Truth dragnet of accomplished liars among others such as the mainstream media, it meant we all better damn well watch our p’s & q’s, not to mention t’s, a’s, b’s, et al.
Open season on suspected wordy malfeasances-and no limit!
Apparently “Channel Four” in UK has some special programming for Trump’s visit to the UK:
“the British channel has vowed to put a spotlight on his “prolific oeuvre of untruths.”
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/channel-4-donald-trump-uk-visit-truth-untruth-lies-program-1236371565/
Sadly, Team Red is good at baling hay which Team Blue will obligingly stack. Capitalizing on societal PTSD and our natural tendency to embrace conspiracy theory, our masters will further whittle away at what’s left of the public’s constitutional rights. Funny, when the Kirk shooter seems to be a natural evolution of the “school shooter”.
Re Bullets and Ballots: The Legacy of Charlie Kirk
Living aside the rather mild treatment of Kirk’s positions and methods, this article basically repudiates the identity politics and cancel culture approach of the Dem Party. It was always a ground favoring social conservatives and we are all now paying for their decision to use social and identity issues to neutralize any potential coalition of social liberals and conservatives over economic issues. The Dems didn’t invent the politics of fear, but they certainly escalated them with cancel culture. The blowback of this decision was always bound to be destructive to us all.
A Requiem from the FDR/New Deal working man Dem, The Normal Latino Dem, And now the young people of the country……
There is a lot to unpack – and there is a lot to say. I am sorry this is long.
The email arrived from our “handler” or whatever they call it at the DNC this AM. It is crystal clear from the email that the Democratic Party has realized over the last several days the once in a generation PR disaster they have brought down on themselves. They have also clearly realized that they are going to have a very difficult time dealing with this situation given the mass exodus of voters ( I completely officially changed my party affiliation to Unaffiliated on Friday), and who they actually have left. Some of the most unappealing groups in all of the country. They are terrified.
My wife and I both agree and saw this coming years ago. The embrace of extreme identity politics, the “only the credentialed are allowed or even have a brain”, the abuse of social media, the “rules are for thee and not for me” mindset, and last but not least – the Trump Derangement Syndrome that has completely destroyed the intellectual ability of so many on their side. Trump is dancing in their head when they work, play, eat, sleep, even when having bowel movements. He never leaves their brains – and accordingly EVERYTHING about the entire platform of the Party is all Trump all the time.
I could tell by the email today – they have realized far too late that it has all detonated in their face in a nuclear explosion. The Weimar Germany category is exactly correct. I had always wondered what it would be like to live through this kind of demolition – now I know.
Shortly after the Kirk event, I began to have gruesome and horrific things showing up on my Facebook feed. I will not repeat them here – but these things were from 3 people that were in the family, that I had seen grown up. It was absolutely horrific – and I became enraged that the TDS or whatever is going on had so affected their psyche. I know these young people well. One of them has already been terminated. It has likely terminated their career. The other two fortunately were pretty well locked down and not public.
I would ask you to go find the video of Trump several years ago at the exact moment he was told that Ruth Ginsberg had passed away. Total class. He actually stated he disagreed on most things with her – but “what a wonderful human being”. Contrast that to this week – NOT ONE SINGLE DEMOCRAT IN THE LEADERSHIP STOOD UP IN ANY KIND OF SIMILAR WAY. NOT ONE. Guys, if you have to, just lie about it. But at least you will appear to be a human being. Instead, they turned over the entire messaging machine of the party to 4 days – still ongoing – of hyenas cackling about blood and brains being spewed everywhere. Not only that we had all kinds of political commenters with national reputations going on about cancel culture – the exact same ones who said nothing when young men across the country were being fired for refusing a completely ineffective vaccine – the exact same ones who have sermonized for several years that our democracy MUST HAVE cancel culture. On the other ring of the circus – we have all kinds of politicos and commenters from that side bending themselves into pretzels to “prove” the killer was a RIGHT wing loon.
Anyone with any kind of brain and or morality has been taking this all in – and stating – “Yeah, those people are nuts”. So we had 2 vigils this week. Blowing out of the water by orders of magnitude the attendance at things like No Kings. We had one young person from solid Dem families on the stage stating that they would never be a Dem – “I agreed with some things he said – therefore, they must want me dead too”. I call that Logic 101. It is hard to practice Logic when your entire world view is based on purity tests. We had an absolutely packed church yesterday and as the clergy brought up the Charlie Kirk issue, well, I have never seen anything like this in my life. I live in a blue area.
This is all so insane. I just do not even know what to say. I turn on my TV this AM and instead of someone like Obama or Pelosi trying to make this right – we have video of multiple Karens spray painting hate speech in the street in front of the house of a Trump official with little kids. THEY HAVE LEARNED NOTHING. They are not going to change – and we are headed towards something bad.
My own profession has lost its marbles to TDS. I am told that the national orgs for IM, Peds, and FP in protest of RFK and the imminent release of damaging info about the COVID vaccines is planning a national physician strike sometime in October. When I saw this, I was literally as dumbfounded as I have ever been in my life.
1) MDs have been told for years in this country that strikes are completely unethical and just cannot be done. Therefore, there was no strike when issue after issue has completely destroyed our work. But not only that and far more importantly, there has been no strike over the years as things have become obvious that our profession is doing that is destroying the lives of our patients and our society. I can go on about this for hours.
2) Because of the extreme incompetence of these national leaders, there are simply not enough doctors to spread out the load in a strike – if they do this, people will die.
I am dumbfounded – we have not had a strike on all kinds of moral issues for decades – but we are going to strike because RFK is going to discuss these half-assed vaccines? Are you kidding me? Am I in a Twilight Zone episode?
And finally for those of you ( and many Dems have been saying this all week ) that Charlie Kirk was not important – please sit down and be quiet. You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about and you have no idea the influence he had on young people blue and red. This behavior is literally whistling through the graveyard.
Doc,
I agree with almost everything you say here. I’ve always greatly appreciated your comments. And like you and many NC commenters, much, if not the majority, of my critical comments over the last 8 years have been directed toward mainstream Democrats and the liberal Establishment in politics, the media, and academia, for reasons with which we are all familiar. That includes their TDS, which has been used by those in this Establishment to manipulate a good portion of the electorate and demonize the rest of it.
But all that said, let’s not react by assuming that Trump is anything but a right-wing demagogue who is carrying out a very dangerous agenda for some very dangerous people. I have said before that I am not sure myself how knowledgeable and witting Trump is in all this. But your citing his kind words about Ginsberg was pretty startling; any of us could string together endless clips of Trumpisms that easily rival your Democrat examples in their nastiness – and that’s just from stuff coming out of his mouth over the last month, let alone his entire life. Yes, the obliviousness and condescension of the neoliberal Establishment is greatly responsible for the rise of a pseudo-populist charlatan pretender like Trump. But as has been said many times by contributors and commentators here, Trump is just a symptom. He is also a tool that various powerful interests have attempted to use for their own ends. And whatever his personal beliefs or qualities or sincerity – SO WAS CHARLIE KIRK. It is true that the liberal media is trying to spin Kirk, and spin his assassin as a “right wing loon.” It is also true that the right-wing media is furiously spinning Kirk as a saintly martyr and his assassin as, not a “left-wing loon,” but rather as representative of entirely manufactured fake “radical left” in the US that must be eradicated. Those pushing this agenda don’t give a s**t about “liberty” or “freedom of speech” or the masses of distressed people placing their hope in scape-goating demagogues like Charlie Kirk or Donald Trump.
Again, I agree with almost everything you’ve said. But please, let’s be clear about how deep the problem really is here.
I don’t read IM Doc’s giving an example of Trump’s reaction to Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s passing as even a faint endorsement of Trump or his character. Rather, he was giving an example of a reaction, however fake and insincere, that many Democrats couldn’t even muster after Kirk’s killing.
Personally, I could add that many Democrats were busy bashing Ginsberg for not stepping down during Obama’s second term, so her successor could be appointed under his administration. Those reactions resurfaced after her passing and it was not a good look, to put it mildly.
Sorry, I specifically picked a very careful example of him reacting to someone dying. Someone with whom he had the most intense of disagreements. As odious as he may be sometimes – he was able to muster an appropriate response back then that did not horrify a majority of the country. Unlike the Dems this past week, the leader of the party stood up and made the gentle gesture and that was that. Imagine the place we would be as a country if a leader of the Dem party would have done that last week. Instead, we got all kinds of discussion about how the right wing was at fault because they are right wingers and they are inherently violent and insensitive and this hate from the left was all their fault, or in other cases how “we are at war”. If just one of them had stood up and handled this the way Trump did years ago – I am fairly sure the rest of the minions would have acquiesced and we would be in a much better position. But the one thing I have learned from modern Dems – they have absolutely no experience with human behavior.
Instead – we have full on TDS – that is absolutely all the Democratic Party is today. And it makes this Dem sick to my stomach.
I have seen Trump say lots of things – but not to this level of depravity – please I urge you to point to me where he has talked about it was too bad that the brains were not blown all over the 3 year old, or that it was too bad they should have hit his dick. etc etc etc. Whatever you may think or feel – because none of the Dems stood up to say otherwise – that became the Dem messaging this week. That entire side of my family and the elder Dems in it – were just like me – horrified at what their younger ones were doing. We are all trying to figure out how to intervene.
I am so sorry – Trump is a very unpleasant guy. But not even he has ever plumbed the depths that these people did this week – and to have the leaders just stand by and watch.
I am done with the lunacy. There will never be any kind of return to normal until this entire country learns from this and stops this in its tracks.
I have spent my life reading and meditating about the stories of saints. It is part of my faith. As was so often in the past – and is happening right now before our eyes, it is the bumbling incompetence of the political leaders that makes martyrs. We are watching it happen again before our very eyes. If you know anything about many of the saints of the Church – they were not really good people either until the events occurred to bring them to the fore. I am seeing things in my own previously left-leaning religious community that I never thought possible. People are not taking this lying down.
I do not like Trump – he is not my kind of guy. However, I have the maturity to not allow him into every thought and impulse in my brain. Until my previous side figures this out, we are all doomed.
So…
We starting a new Party or what?
#EconomicPopulism
#AmericanRevolution2.0
American Revolution 2: Electric Boogaloo
No theatrical release, direct to home video.
Every prominent Democrat I saw on TV condemned this killing in the strongest possible terms. Every prominent Democrat condemned the attempted assassination of Trump as well. Who are you referring to here? If you are referring to comments by your own friends, acquaintances, or online commenters protected by internet anonymity, then of course you are correct. If you are claiming that these liberal “lunatics” are any more fanatically disgusting or violent in their hatred than similar people among self-identified conservatives, Republicans, or “the Right,” then you must indeed live in a Blue Bubble. I was born and raised in the Red Heartland. In many ways I am of those people. That is why, along with you, I am very critical of condescending liberals who condemn them out of hand. But good God, I’ve been listening to right-wing “barbed wire enema” rhetoric directed toward liberals my whole life. Do you actually think their rhetoric toward the commie Kenyan Muslim Osama bin Obama was more civilized? Do you actually think those milksops in the liberal media and academia are more violent – in rhetoric or in potential action – than their counterparts among the “deplorables”? And much more important: do you actually think that the real powers behind Trump among fin-tecch oligarchs, neocon ideologues, neofascist military leaders, arms merchants, etc. are in any way better than those among the “liberal” factions of the Establishment, or in any way care more about the “common people”?
This is a Game of Thrones battle among powerful interests. This “liberal vs. conservative,” “Democrat vs. Republican,” “Left vs. Right” theater is a show for sheep-herding the masses. I’m more than happy to heap criticisms on the hypocritical liberal side. But please don’t imply that
It’s true that many Democrats and the liberal media are pointing to the demonizing rhetoric used by the Right as part of the problem. However hypocritical that might be, surely you aren’t denying that such rhetoric on the Right exists? Or that when it is used by demagogues like Trump or Kirk it is almost always directed at relatively powerless scapegoats like immigrants or blacks or Muslims, etc. and almost never at truly powerful enemies of the people? Surely you aren’t suggesting that these demagogic right-wingers are REALLY dedicated to “free speech” and “dialogue”? Or that there is really a vast network of “radical leftist organizations” which require new repressive laws – in order to protect “liberty” and “free speech”?
Don’t contribute to this hypocritical fake “victimization” by the powers behind the Red Team politicos.
One of my wife’s most prized possessions is a picture of us standing with the Obamas several years ago.
As former Dems we are both shell-shocked. As far as him, the Obama mystique began to wear off when it was published that “Yeah I am pretty good at it” when referring to ordering the deaths of hundreds with drones at weddings.
But as my wife said yesterday about Michelle Obama – about the very reason why we were still clinging to the Dems – “What ever happened to – when they go low, we go high?”
It is quite dispiriting.
And yes there were condemnations from leaders – but as we call them in our house with our kids there were always “but” attached. But this right wing problem or that right wing problem. Again – look at the Trump apology video – when did “but” ever come up. This is called being a human being and being able to read the room. “I am sorry, but” does not go over in our house – and that does not go over in our national discourse with this kind of thing.
A large reason I finally bit the bullet and changed my party affiliation this week is my kids, raised in a Dem household in a very blue area, are now asking very tough questions – that are very difficult to answer. The issues are so obvious that I am just not going to make stuff up. I respect them too much. I must follow the same rules I demand of them. I absolutely am not going to let my kids grow up with their dad a member of this abomination we now call the Dem Party. Their mom has made that decision quite a while ago.
There are big problems on the right – but the issue for me is the Dem party were “my people” for decades. Again – you go low we go high. I have followed the crazy that has happened to get them into the current situation – and the center Dems like me are going to have be the ones to stand up like I did today to do anything to pull them out of the fire. I know for a fact there are plenty of moderate GOP who clearly understand the problem on their side. THEY are going to have to deal with their loons.
I have seen too many people suffer the past 8 years under the auspices of “free speech” from the Dem Party – trying to pretend this has not happened is just ludicrous.
For what it’s worth — having lived in Germany for almost 50 years but having followed developments in the U.S. very closely — I agree with you 100%.
In the mid-decade 2000s I was active in Democrats Abroad. At their meetings they would show video about the U.S. in Iraq under Bush the younger — about IDF-style indiscriminate murder of families, occupation government and military-contractor corruption (Halliburton / KBR), and so forth.
I voted in an official primary for Dennis Kucinich but the fix was already in for Obama. After he won, there was a distinct change in the whole Democrats Abroad subculture. Obligatory rah-rah groupthink took over, and criticism of war, occupation, and CIA torture evaporated overnight.
Since then, it’s been all downhill. Years online at Daily Kos: similar experience.
Never again Dem.
For me that moment was when Bill and Hillary voted against gay marriage rights, and also the bombing of Serbia (though I was convinced the Serbs were commiting a genocide, even at the time I had problems with the precedent this was setting, and precisely this precedent is playing out right now, the consequences of it are here). That was a complete and utter betrayal and also when it became difficult for me to distinguish between republican and democrat.
Bravo.
second
I realized that both parties were Killers in 2028, that’s why I voted for Cynthia McKinney (sp). People who don’t vote or vote others are the majority.
TDS is an abomination of critical thinking people. So is Trump and co.
I realized back in 1993; neither party cares about people
Doc, I spend far too much time roaming the internet and listening to YouTube, but I don’t recognize your description here: “ Instead, we got all kinds of discussion about how the right wing was at fault because they are right wingers and they are inherently violent and insensitive and this hate from the left was all their fault, or in other cases how “we are at war.” I did, of course, hear President Trump immediately and without any evidence blame the shooting on the radical leftist extremists. (As some have accurately pointed out, the Democrats have done their best to run anyone even mildly left-wing out of the Party altogether,). Be that as it may, as Democrats have been repeatedly attacked as evil Marxists, it’s no surprise to find them returning the attack. Not particularly edifying, maybe, but part of current political discourse.
You may be aware that Matthew Dowd was fired from MSNBC for remarking that peddling hate will often provoke violence in return. Do you perhaps believe that the Republican attempt to censor anyone who quotes from some of Charlie Kirk’s particularly hateful and divisive public statements is justified?
If you could provide us with specific quotes and references, it might help to understand why you believe that particular Democratic politicians should be speaking out in reproof.
Thank you for the even keel and all your comments.
But I can’t agree that we should
please sit down and be quiet
Kirk may be important to those you know but that doesn’t make him important to me. We’ve been hearing this gee whiz early Tucker Carlson thinking outside the box all our lives. Back in the sixties they were YAF–Young Americans For Freedom. I doubt many of them died in rice paddies.
Woke is/was fad. The MIC is forever–seemingly. None of this is personal for some of us who literally have never heard of him. But being wrong is being wrong whoever it is. In America today way too much is personal.
Charlie Kirk didn’t exist as far as I was concerned only a week ago, why must I care all that much now?
I spent an hour reading up on him posthaste, very charismatic and being an attractive 6 foot 5 fellow is an easy sell too.
Most of what he was all about I disagreed with and seemingly he lied as often as the Donald, not that it matters now-he’s dead.
The same moment Charlie died, a minute later in Colorado, another gunman shot and critically wounded a couple of high school students.
Guns are the issue~
<"Guns are the issue~"
Well, we can agree that guns facilitate violence but I see no way in which they create violence. Guns didn't kill the woman on the subway.
I was at a Charlie Kirk vigil in Waikiki last week. The overall emphasis of the speakers is that this is not a red/blue issue, but one of Godly vs ungodly.
I get that many if not most here scoff at religion in general and Christianity in particular. But the message of Charlie Kirk and TPUSA is being received by college and HS youth whom I suspect sense that the kind of nihilistic violence in America today needs to stop and embracing religion is a means towards that end.
This is different from YAF (and I've been there/done that and obviously I didn't die in a rice-paddy but did serve a career in the military) which to the extent YAF called for belief in something larger than the self was largely built on a concept of "patriotism".
Just a few hundred years ago, Christians would have killed me for not believing in a deity, and we’re heading that direction again, but in this case it’s a mere mortal the vast majority of the country has never heard of, we are supposed to care so deeply about.
I believe in deities that I call god, but they may not be your conception.
Aside, I was always struck by Thomas Paine resorting to scripture to argue with Christianity
You can get killed for not believing in the proper deity right now, if you’re heading in the direction of Syria. The killers are a proxy of the USA judeo-christians. There is nothing new under the sun.
I read that as IM Doc saying that if he wasn’t important to you – and as a total Social Media Avoided, except as mediated by NC and other outlets – THEN you should just sit down and be quiet, and should not try to emphasize that he wasn’t important. Personally, I don’t ever remember hearing about him until his murder.
The fact that before his assassination he was some kind of parochial celebrity in the USA and totally unknown in foreign countries, whereas now in the USA he is widely presented as a martyr in prime time while politicians in European countries brandish his picture as a fighter for free speech strongly suggests that he is more useful to some faction dead than when he was alive.
Charlie Kirk is being instrumentalized by, well, whoever is shouting the loudest about free speech advocates victims of a mythical “far-left” violence, but I question the idea that he ever really counted. Does anybody remember Steve Bannon? Once he was a major MAGA-adjacent voice, and even presented as a thought-leader for Trump. Once he fell from grace, he basically disappeared and we heard/read almost nothing from/about him since. Those alternative-media persons do not have any real power, and I have some doubts about the extent of their cultural influence; I suspect they are unwittingly used by others as convenient pieces on the big political chess board.
Interestingly, he is being presented as a popular conservative politician (movement leader, key Trump ally, etc.) and a free speech martyr in Russian media as well, as we catch up. I wonder what’s behind that, then (apart from simple schadenfreude at bad things happening in America). Then again – he was very popular, wasn’t he? It seems like he was well-known among the right-leaning part of American (and, to a lesser extent, European, from some of what I’ve seen online) youth, and the Republicans in general.
That so many people have not heard of him (or couldn’t remember? I actually am genuinely not sure if I have heard of him before or not) just goes to show how much more fragmented modern society has become. A prominent political activist (so someone oriented towards expanding his reach widely) can be wildly popular in one section of society, hated in another, and unknown to many others. This leads to mutual incredulity – how could you think that this was a big deal? How could you not?
He was made a a speaking character on South Park the week or so before he was shot. So I don’t see how anyone can pretend he was not culturally significant.
South Park is known for digging out obscure things and puting them in the limelight. Sometimes people are not sure if they made something up, or it’s a real thing (like the Human Centipede movie, that no one knew about before South Park “promoted” it).
In USA all kind of people get their 15-minutes of fame and get culturally “significant”. That doesn’t mean that they are culturally significant without he quotation marks. Before he got shot, this guy was less known than Navalny, or Guaido.
Navalny was not as well-known to the general population in Russia as you might think, so perhaps it was a closer match. He was well-known among likeminded people and people who paid close attention to politics – that is far from everyone, as more political-minded types kept finding out to their surprise. Of course, the population of political-minded types in America is substantially bigger than here, but also more fragmented.
Kirks death is important because he was an important role model for a large part of the teens and twenties of America today.
Shooting the man just taught the youth of America that raw violence is the touchstone of contemporary politics. Fear for when they internalize that lesson.
I was in 3rd grade when they killed Kennedy. I haven’t believed or trusted anything since.
Amen
RGB was a public figure in government. Charlie Kirk was a sheepdog for the reactionaries to justify their stances. Also Democratic reactions:
Gavin Newsome:
Zohan Mandami:
Hakeem Jeffries:
Bernie Sanders:
Just because the media or Facebook didn’t cover them, doesn’t mean they aren’t there.
You are missing the point – the “but” part – where did anyone on this side tell people to knock it off with the gore? Where did anyone stand up and say We all need to calm down right now.
The email that I received today from the DNC clearly understands that they have really screwed up the response.
It took until today, and Fetterman, which occurred since I wrote the initial comment, for any of them to come forward with any kind of “knock it off” rhetoric.
Pelosi spent the weekend with a “we can’t help what people say or think” stance – and actually appeared on TV doing so.
I’m rather hoping that my previous rather muddled comment will remain in moderation, particularly after reading the excellent contributions from pjay, Kurtis mayfield, and others above.
Here, I’d like to focus on “knock it off with the gore.” Just who, among the Democrats, is responsible for the gore, or is calling for more gore?
I’m finding your argument very hard to follow.
Too bad that fetterman can’t bring himself to tell the zionists to “knock it off.” In Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Iraq, the blood continues to flow and flow, to the point that physicians who’ve been in Gaza, in particular, if they’re not gunned down or bombed by the idf, refer to their experiences in haunted tones. To use the genocider fetterman as an example of reasonableness leaves me profoundly disappointed.
The days of taking any, any, pride in my country are finished. Gaza has changed me forever, and this talk of trump’s being genuinely sorry about learning of ginsberg’s death smacks of being just another american tall tale. This, from a moral cretin who in the past week ordered the murder of eleven people in a small craft, is simply unbelievable. Yes, like you say, trump is an unpleasant guy. But good God, man, is that all you can say?
I am about to give up.
I brought in the Fetterman example – because he is the only one I know of on that side who has really said a word to have them stop these takes. His non-position on Gaza has nothing to do with the point I am making.
Who said I said a thing about him being genuinely sorry? – I even suggested he may have been lying – I did say that this the kind of rhetoric that may have turned down the temperature of what is going on.
What kind of diatribe about Trump would have been acceptable to you. I can go on and on. I just did not think that was the place to do it. I really do give up. This is exactly what we all talk about when we are using the words Trump Derangement Syndrome. The purity test – I did not do three paragraphs about Trump – therefore I do not hate him enough – and therefore I need to be mocked? – Do you not understand that this is why the rhetoric on the left side turns off so many people – likely a majority at this point?
fwiw, i had no trouble getting your meaning on the first reading of your initial post.
but i have y’all on a big flat screen at the wilderness bar…1″ letters,lol.
I get what you are saying but not what it has to do with this blog where Pelosi Dems are thin on the ground. It’s doubtful that any youth support will be lost by what is said in a comment section where everyone seems to be over the age of fifty! We all lost faith in the Dems years ago. Republicans too. What we have here may be a failure to communicate to quote a certain movie.
So I will stick to my disinterest in Kirk’s fate and hope no “purity test” will apply to that either. In the larger picture people are shot in the US every day by kooks as in this case. When the people shot are defenders of the kooks having guns that does mean something and something that transcends politics or appropriate responses. It’s ok to say that (among friends).
Something else that’s OK to say among friends:
When old farts like us ran campaigns, Democrats won. Then the neolibs cronyized campaign politics and the losing started. Then the neolibs compounded the cronyism with ID politics. If you haven’t noticed, the ID leaders seem pretty young (the recruited/groomed schtick is spot on) and sure enough the new folks have been making rookie mistakes that you simply cannot make when votes are at stake.
You don’t win elections by not knowing who Charlie Kirk is.
But fetterman does have a position on Gaza. He’s all in with the genocide in Gaza, and likely any destruction that the zionist entity might inflict on its neighbors. To use that man as some sort of model in tamping down the rhetoric in this country would be laughable, but I can’t laugh because the death and destruction in Gaza is so monstrous. I have a hard time realizing that a growing number of americans are opposed to the zionist entity’s genocide in Gaza, but that the slaughter, and forced starvation, goes along day by day, abetted by my government, enraptured blissfully in the zionist money machine. Would you agree?
I have already said that Gaza has forever changed me. To speak intelligently about men like trump, charlie kirk, fetterman, obama, biden, is beyond my pay grade. I can only speak like a man aggrieved, who has lost something that he never really had, a dream, that justice will come in its time, like reason and adulthood to a child. But it hasn’t, it won’t, and somehow it seems that the wicked do prosper, and that god is mocked over and over again. Perhaps justice is beyond His pay grade too.
I can’t go on, I must go on, I shall go on.
Doc, with all due respect. We ain’t tribalists of either dying tribe here. Read the temperature, help create a real party that cares about all people. We’re the majority
Don’t give up. Endure, with faith.
And with love for all. For each of us, including the most evil, was once a baby, needing love to live and gloriously innocent.
Your point about Gaza is key to the Huge increase in Violent Rhetoric in our world. and real Violence. Seeing images of forced starvation and genocide Every Day is making it Normalized. Good grief, what is happening – with war, climate craziness, seeing Zionazis gloat about shooting children and civilians, and our USA backing it all. It grieves me so deeply, I weep for our children and grandchildren. What a world.
And I have hoped that the best Wisdom would be Kindness. It is so hard to soldier on in my small fight for a community that cares for each other.
Can’t remember the last time a video of somebody being shot with blood spurting out was allowed on the internet, but it was ok with cap’n Kirk’s death, why’s that?
Because (1) typically the Powers That Be monopolize control of what everyone is allowed to see, as was done with the Zapruder film of JFK being shot —
And (2) this time so many people were taking their own live video with their phones, that (3) even Alphabet / Google, owner of YouTube — a company joined at the hip to the Deep State — understands that they would only infuriate their users if they were too obvious in helping the Powers That Be do that, i.e. (1) monopolize control, again?
IM Doc, would you be interested in doing something positive for the. country? I think you might be interested in a very effective form of campaign finance regulation which bypasses Citizens United and ends our cancerous “one dollar, one vote” system. Drop a line to me at pob 665, 05156
An article linked here yesterday said the Dems have become the party of the college educated and the US is still a majority non college educated country and therefore the Dems by definition have consigned themselves to the minority.
I don’t think that’s wrong. We’ve traded our meritocracy without merit for the once pervasive racism but both are based on stereotypes and artificial distinctions. As I’ve pointed out here before some of our leading intellectuals didn’t even go to college–Gore Vidal an example. If the Dems insist on dismissing the working class then the working class will dismiss them. And immigrants in the main are also working class so their hope that people of color from elsewhere will continue to give them their majority plus one is also evaporating as seen in the last election.
One might even suggest that Trump’s dummkopf routine is a canny tactic to appeal to those who resent education snobbery. But I doubt that he can help himself.
Novara Media, Aaron Bastani with Jason Hickel:
Infinite Growth Will Lead to Collapse
Interesting.
“Hungary and Slovakia must quit Russian gas and nuclear, Trump envoy warns’
‘U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright…said it would be preferable for Europe to get its supplies from “its friends.”
Well he would say that, wouldn’t he. And by “friends” I am sure that he actually means his own friends-
‘Before his appointment, he was the CEO of Liberty Energy, North America’s second largest hydraulic fracturing company, and served on the boards of Oklo Inc., a nuclear technology company, and EMX Royalty Corp., a Canadian mineral rights and mining rights royalty payment company.’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Wright
And reading through his Wikipedia entry, found that the guy once did an Obama-
‘In 2019 Wright drank fracking fluid to demonstrate that it was not dangerous.’
Westinghouse is pushing to sell AP1000 reactors…
“It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal.”
― Henry Kissinger
Beautiful Xoloitzcuintle! We have a Peruvian Naked Dog, almost the same breed but with slightly finer features. Wonderful companions with a very unique dog mind.
…with a very unique dog mind.
Ah? Hem, all right. What does it mean in practice? Is this an understatement for “ferociously stubborn and headstrong” or something indicative of eccentric behaviour?
vao: Any dog, except for those in-bred brainless panting messes being dragged around by neurotics, is going to be stubborn. Dogs have opinions about things.
I would imagine that a unique dog mind is something I’ve seen in the border collies and other midsized and bigger hounds (not the lumbering giants, though, who mainly just lumber). Obvious intelligence. An ability to solve problems. A certain savvy about who is a decent human being (whose leg one can lean against). A sense of humor, which means an understanding of things not working correctly. And, contrary to what Americans tend to think, a very direct gaze (Italian dogs look me up and down).
And, like the character Arlecchino from the commedia dell’arte, a constant concern about where the next meal is coming from. (Which, living as I do in the Undisclosed Region, is also a main concern of Italians. Hmmm. )
Pretty much right, especially the trickster sense of humor and a constant obsession with various types and aspects of getting different and interesting food. Meals are just the start, lol. I always say he’s like Nancy tricking Aunt Fritzi into giving her more sweets. Plus, there’s something unique in the primitive breeds that are close to the Pariah Dog in that they will show you their emotions with a slight move of the head or a gesture that isn’t in the dog language that an experienced trainer would recognize. If I know this commentariat, there’s likely someone here who could tell us even more 🙂
While all the dogs we saw in Peru were naked, didn’t see a Peruvian Naked Dog in any of the free range pooches we witnessed all over the place.
Our favorite was a chocolate lab that joined us walking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu for the first day-a traipse of 6 miles.
It dutifully waited outside of our dinner tent for leftovers, as if it had done the same thing hundreds of times, following hikers.
We had a rescue Quetzalcōātl, but it was constantly eating our chicken and eggs.
This is fascinating having grown up watching it happen in realtime. We take for granted the courage and ability to manage stress these men had. Maybe we still watch too many movies and TV shows that make it seem almost easy.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/09/60-years-after-gemini-newly-processed-images-reveal-incredible-details/
My earliest memory is being forcefully awaken one fine day in 1965, because my parents didn’t want me to miss the first American walk in space, it was that important!
My set of 1966 World Book Encyclopedia stops at the Gemini program, with America at its height of influence.
Re: Chinese tech scientists have jumped ahead of US counterparts in global downloads of open-source AI programs. “As hard as it is for us all to swallow, I think we’re behind now,” said Ali Farhadi of Seattle’s Allen Institute for ai, quoted in the Economist. 1/7
*********
On China, the US, and AI, I was thinking of how odd it is that none of the giants produced by the previous tech revolution (computers, internet) are European. Every single one of Google, Microsoft, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, Dell, Netflix, Facebook, etc is from the USA. I guess somebody in 1985 might have predicted a loss for Europe to the USA (i am not sure?), but who would have predicted a loss so comprehensive?
Japan might have been predicted to do better given that they had Nintendo, Sony, Panasonic, Mitsubishi, etc, but didn’t happen. But Europe doesn’t even have equivalents to those companies.
On present-day China and the USA, I fear how the US elites will react if they lose the AI race. But perhaps I should fear how they’d react if they were to win the race.
US’ AI needs protection from Chinese advances made at tiny fraction of investment inputs.
Europe did produce technology giants from the previous revolution of wireless telecommunications in the 1990s: Ericsson and Nokia.
North America has none left: Motorola, Nortel, Lucent all went down; Qualcomm is a core player but no longer produces infrastructure equipment, nor terminals (such as mobile phones), nor the processors it sells to other manufacturers of terminals. It is essentially an IPR machine.
This being said, the Chinese are now also supplanting the two European champions.
In the technology that runs infrastructure and manufacturing, Siemens is huge. Kuka and ABB are two of the giants in robotics (although Kuka got sold to China so the German footprint is disappearing.)
ASML is also uniquely positioned.
“Starmer tells Tommy Robinson he ‘will not surrender’ British flag to violence”
Starmer may think that he sounds like Churchill when he says stuff like this but nobody, and I mean nobody, will ever mistake Starmer for Churchill.
re. that LG ICE bust…
another example of both sides being in the wrong (to some, if not symmetric, degree) and Twitter folks loving to impose their worldview onto the facts.
In this case among the 300+ Koreans, there were 10 Chinese, 3 Japanese, and 1 Indonesian. Strong indication that LG and/or Hyundai knowingly used contractors to outsource their visa obligations. https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2025-09-11/national/socialAffairs/Unshackled-and-in-high-spirits-Korean-workers-depart-detention-facility-for-Atlanta-airport/2397085
Sri Lanka’s crisis and debt devouring the global South. Al_Jazeera.
Definitely worth your while. Sri Lanka is one of those countries, like Brazil, that is quite successful on many fronts — such as education and health care — even as their history seems like a string of bouts of bad luck. I am reminded, too, of Lebanon.
As I was reading, I thought, Now what would Indi Samarajiva have to say about this debt crisis?
The debt crisis and IMF colonialism get a few small mentions in a piece with many ramifications. Comparison of the Sri Lankan civil war to Gaza. Implicit comparisons to Ukraine: Yes, the only way out is to bring wars to an end.
https://indi.ca/how-sri-lankas-war-is-not-like-israels-genocide/
Recommended.
I know nothing about public corporate governance, but this is a NY Times oped, so I’m suspicious of its reasoning:
The Quiet Force Imperiling Our Booming Stock Market (NY Times OpEd via archive.ph)
This is seen as very bad.
Basically:
I can’t assess this, having no knowledge of corporate governance.
These rules, norms and regulations
Abundance requires no rules, norms, or regulations
A lot of op eds lately seem to have an aspect of ai training, objective sounding bs that gets mainlined into the incipient borg.
I suspect the real problems are as follows:
1) the firm must make its balance sheet, profit and loss account, and lots of detailed information about valuations, risks, compensations, financial obligations, etc public;
2) registration on the stock exchange and all associated procedures cost money.
There’s nothing puzzling about this trend toward private equity, and there is nothing egregious about requiring clear reporting from those taking money from the public.
Greedy operators prefer to operate outside of SEC rules, rules which were established in the 1930s to prevent fraud and damage caused by unregulated financial markets. Now our corrupt government allows them a free pass to go around the regulations.
“It’s Your Party and I’ll Cry If I Want To”
From what is in this post, I think that you can write off ‘Your Party.’ They appear to try to be copying the US Democrat party where members of that party have zero say in the affairs of that party but do have the right to contribute money to that party. A small elite make all the decisions and a court has found that they are not answerable to their members. And this is what Your Party wants as well which will be really Our Party. What’s the point? You may as well vote for the Reform party for that sort of corruption. This is being set up so that members will have no say there. But if they set it up so that if 90% of members vote yes on one issue, then it becomes party policy, it would sweep the political landscape. But the way they want to set it up is so that they can sell that party out to the highest bidder for their own personal gain. Forget them.
A bit of a hasty judgement by yourself here mate! While I respect Murray I think it worthwhile to see how this plays out first.Corbyn is the key figure here and he is very keen -with many others – on growing local community serving based organisations and structures.Something has to be built to fight the right wing,especially since the decline of the trade unions had deprived us of hairy-assed mine workers,steelworkers,dockers etc who were always our shock troops.
MAGA On the March
China’s Snub of U.S. Soybeans Is a Crisis for American Farmers (NY Times via archive.ph)
Oops.
I’m sure that people like Trump & Lutnick figure that if they just hold off a little while longer, then those Chinese will come storming back to the US and willing to pay any price for good old American soybeans. Yep, any day now. Just you see.
And another oops:
US labor force lost 1.2 million workers
Ahh well, guess we don’t need them!
Looks like “self deportation” is working! We’re gonna get to see if them fruits and vegetables pick themselves now! America is going great!
I put my needs at one hundred billion dollars, in small bills.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJR1H5tf5wE&t=39s
From Toxic Fumes Are Leaking Into Airplanes, Sickening Crews and Passengers
You’re kidding me.
When you fly you need to wear a P100 with a chem-filter? And this is a long known issue; Isn’t capitalism great?
You’d think in 2025 it would be safe to fly, eh? How long have we had commercial air flight now?
The usual dodge from Big Tobacco and Big Oil is used
Well, we just don’t know. It isn’t us. We need more studies.
It’s not my fault, I didn’t do it, nobody saw me, you can’t prove anything!
re: CBS
CBS’s new ethics chief led arms industry, foreign gov’t funded think tank
Under Kenneth Weinstein’s leadership, the Hudson Institute published reports calling for more military spending without disclosing potential conflicts of interest
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/cbs-kenneth-weinstein/
Britsh-colloquialism-ahead warning. :) Russians are just taking the piss. Instead of sending those missiles towards the Ukraine (as they used to do), they are firing them onto themselves. What makes it funnier, is that NATO doesn’t even anything similar in its arsenal.
On “Fox News host apologizes for ‘extremely callous’ remarks on unhoused people”:
I an surprised but not surprised that there is not a bigger outrage about what he said. This dude said the most un Christ like thing on what is supposed to be a Christian News Channel. Being someone with a serious mental illness and homeless I can tell you no one cares about the mentally ill. No one. I have never committed a crime in my life or hurt anyone, not even punched anyone, yet my own family rejected me, why? I don’t know, they will not even tell me. And when I tell people I have Schizoaffective Disorder Bipolar Type I can see the change in their facial expressions. And this is as true for the Dems and it is the Reps. The other host said “the gave billions to the homeless and mentally ill”…HA! I get Medicare so I get healthcare, but I cannot get a psychiatrist or a therapist. So I am left telling my idiot priamry care docs what I need and what meds I cannot take and they still think they know better than me who has been living if this for over half my near 60 year old life. Can I get some housing? No! Section 8??? Wait three years and then your name will just drop off the list for no reason.
Kilmeade just said the quite part out loud about how most people see the mentally ill. They alienate us and then we get more ill and then we act out and then they blame us. Gas lit over and over and over.
This is one reason I belong to the Catholic Church: Christ is not afraid of me and neither are most people in the Church. In fact, it is Catholic duty to help the mentally ill above all else. So I am all back for bringing people into Christianity, just not the twisted Christianity of FoxNews.
No one here can imagine my suffering I go through day to day. I would gladly have cancer or any other disease or lose any one of my limbs, because at least then I would have some sympathy. But Have have come to a point of acceptance with the help of my faith in Christ and St. Francis and this brings so much joy in my life. My hope is that I can share this with people I meet, specifically people with this new, warped idea of Christianity, so I can bring them back to the true Church and Christ’s love.
Yes, as a physician, the comments were abhorrent. I am really tired of the lunacy on the margins on both sides.
I am not sure what it will take to get the 60-80% in the middle to wake up and tell the others to go sit in the car.
“tyranny of the minority” (tail wagging the dog) effect. And my hypothesis is that chronic psych med consumption for adolescents and adults, and chronic >35% THC consumption, are turbocharging the lunacy
I’ve always wondered if part of “the Karen effect” is the interaction of psych meds and alcohol + unknown. Over-40 women are the biggest cohort consumers of psych meds—CDC fact.
Idk about the rest of y’all but the weed helps me take all the politics in.
Kinda like a NC Mentat.
These crazy people just make my job easier if uniting the people against their looniness.
We stay calm and keep promoting Class to the people.
When Trump got elected in 2016 my x went to the doc and got meds for depression. She was not alone as many of her friends did the same. They joined a local group that was like AA for Trump haters in order to help cope.
She was the most kind and sweetest women I ever knew, then turned into a raving bitch. Stage 10 TDS and still highly inflicted to this day. Everything revolves around hating Trump 24/7/365. Many like her. They are not to fond of his followers either.
For people with serious mood disorders, like myself, they enable me to cope with my episodes. And then I stop taking them. That is how they are supposed to be taken, but that is not what most Doctors do. My brother has been on Prozac for 40 years. He still thinks they help even though he still has visible depression.
Now I think there are way too many people, specifically young people, who are not clinical depressed that get these meds prescribed by tehir primary care and I think that is wrong and dangerous.
So I would like to keep the baby and get rid of the dirty bathwater.
>>>>My brother has been on Prozac for 40 years.
That pretty much overlaps with the purported clarion call of “Prozac Nation.”
Has *chronic* psych med use over the past 40 years affected the public discourse or public health? With so many confounding variables, that’ll take years to sort out in multiple rounds of papers.
But one thing is for sure—-widespread chronic psych med use has not made things better.
First, I send you my best wishes. As a veteran I’ve had to avail myself of the access to quality mental health care at the VA and I think that access to such care must be available to everyone in America.
Second, I share your sentiment about the difference between the Catholic Church and those from American Protestant denominations associated with the far-right. “Hate thy neighbor” seems to be at the center of their religion, however they try to hide it. Not coincidentally, I saw a lot of them bashing Catholic churches yesterday and today on social media because many of them didn’t mention Charlie Kirk by name during Mass. They act like a cult, not like Christians.
But how many Protestants are of the “far right”?
I’m genuinely asking since I’m out of touch with the whole scene. But back in the day the middle class Protestants were as contemptuous of Falwell as anyone.
And now my churchly town, which once had a tiny Catholic church, has a large and prominent Catholic church. Here’s suggesting that indicates what group is really into going to church at this point.
Hate is always around including yours truly at times. People don’t need religion for an excuse.
I’m pretty out of the loop myself, but I’d say it depends on the denomination and there are definitely some Protestants who are ‘far right’. While I wouldn’t call the Northeastern Baptist church my folks go to ‘far right’, I’m sure other people would. And there are definitely Baptist churches to the right of that one. The Congregational church I went to as a kid was very conservative, although I wouldn’t call it ‘far right’ either. Those southern megachurches on the other hand….. Again, I don’t have any firsthand experience, but my better half and kid attended one in North Carolina a few years ago (I stayed home with some cats instead) and reported that it was very different than anything they were used to.
What they are used to is the Episcopal church, which is extremely liberal in our area at least. The Methodists across the street from me are also pretty liberal – they recently invited the local African immigrant community to use their church. UU is about as liberal as it gets. Quakers, Mennonites, etc. are definitely not far right.
No idea as to the membership of these denominations, but from what I understand the liberal Protestant churches aren’t exactly going gangbusters these days while the big megachurches are doing pretty well for themselves.
Couldn’t tell you but like Lyman Alpha Blob I would focus mostly on those megachurches. While agnostic myself, I have little doubt that Jesus would be cleansing these temples of merchants and money changing head pastors if he resurrected today. That’s to say that they have perverted his teachings for personal and political profit, IMO.
“Kilmeade just said the quite part out loud about how most people see the mentally ill.” That is t he part that gets me. He called for lethal injection for people with SMI.
Just let them die.
My daughter had schizo-affective disorder and I was able to keep her housed as she cycled in and out of housing due to her “episodes”. Sigh. She died in 2019 aged 48. It was a long haul.
Now I work with a group in CA called FASMI (Families Advocating for the Seriously Mentally Ill). We are going to have a Press release at the local KTVU affiliate of FOX in Oakland on Thursday. We are a small but mighty grass roots group that has been connecting with advocates all around the state.
These kinds of violent rhetoric are what normalize Violence against the most vulnerable with what is a physical illness. I’ve heard that Nazi camps were not filled with the mentally and physically ill, because they were killed before they got to the camps. Is this our future? We must push back on it all. — Okay, rant over.
RE: 2 arrested after explosive found under news media vehicle in Salt Lake City
Let’s see –
Vague descriptions of a suspicious device – check!
Zero description of how the suspects were discovered – check!
Muslim sounding suspects – check!
Hoax weapons discovered at suspects’ residence which they believed to be real – check!
Sounds like yet another FBI set up to me. Anybody seen Robert Mueller lately?
Book plug along the same lines…
The Mormon Murders: A True Story of Greed, Forgery, Deceit and Death
Master forger Mark Hoffman has forged all kinds of important Mormon documents, with his crowning glory-the White Salamander Letter, which has the Mormon Church wanting to buy it and bury it, while Jack Mormons want to buy it and expose that Joseph Smith was led to the golden plates of Moroni by a serpent, no bueno!
The authorities are getting wise, so Hoffman plants a number of bombs in SLC, killing a few people and maiming himself and others in the process.
You’ll learn so much about the Mormon church circa 1985, from an outsiders viewpoint.
Another book that largely takes place around that time is “Under the Banner of Heaven” by Jon Krakauer, which examines the 1984 Utah v. Lafferty case, a particularly grisly religious double murder. It also delves deeply into the church and its suppressed history.
re: Genoa dockworkers vs. Israel
video of the quick original statement, end of August I believe:
https://x.com/paolomossetti/status/1962376298237497841?t=Skz9hytlWd3wO5lFmp55Ig&s=03
Here’s the translation of the speech of one of the dockworker’s leaders in Genoa, before the departure of the ships of the Global Sumud Flotilla.
“I want this to be clear to everyone — really to everyone: around mid-September these boats will arrive near the coast of Gaza, close to the critical zone. If we lose contact with our boats, with our comrades, even for just twenty minutes, we will block all of Europe. I’ve written it down so I won’t forget it. Together with our union, together with all the dockworkers who stand with us, together with the whole city of Genoa… from this region 13–14 thousand containers leave every year for Israel, not a single nail will leave anymore.
We will launch an international strike, we will block the roads, we will block the schools, we will block everything. Our young women and men must come back without a scratch, and all this cargo, which belongs to the people and is going to the people, must reach its destination, down to the very last box. That’s all I have to say.”
Thank you, AG. I thank the universe for the Genoa dockworkers and the Houthis.
Friends of mine in Rome apparently protesting every day, surrounded by police, not allowed to put up any serious messages – but going out to their spot regularly.
Apart from that in general apparently more freedom in displaying solidarity in Italy than in FRG re: flags etc.
German scholarly incompetence and intellectual ineptness are shocking…
For those who missed it:
The Death of Holocaust Studies (w/ Raz Segal) | The Chris Hedges Report
Rather than actually explore the history of the Holocaust, Holocaust studies have always been about manufacturing the exceptionality of the Jewish people and the sanctity of Israel.
47 min.
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-death-of-holocaust-studies-w
Thank you for the link, AG.
“Rather than actually explore the history of the Holocaust, Holocaust studies have always been about manufacturing the exceptionality of the Jewish people and the sanctity of Israel.”
Ugh. [bangs head on desk]
“Australia to spend $8 billion on nuclear sub shipyard”
Of course what this is all about is Oz building a base for American nuke boats to operate out of as it will be perhaps decades before we get our own nuke boats.
If it’s built for Americans, then the blueprints include McDonald’s, Starbucks, and brothels.
>Sharaa says agreement with Moscow enabled swift fall of Assad The Cradle
A nation that prioritizes Zionist interests is unfit to be an ally or leader of the Global South.
There is no such thing as “the leader of the Global South”. That’s the whole point. Also, individual coutries choose their allies as they see fit, or unfit. You sound like you are not from the “Global South” at all.
Our government positions itself as a defender of Russians abroad (though many Russian nationalists criticise Putin for falling well short on this count). Depending on who you believe, it prioritises either this image or the actual safety of Russian citizens and their relatives – not Zionist interests, and not Palestinian or Iranian ones either. Unnecessary escalations in our relationship with Israel would be genuinely unpopular with a large part of the population – both Russian Jews/relatives of Jews and Philosemitic liberals (though allying with it openly would be unpopular with a different part of the population, mostly Muslims).
That aside, I agree with Ksum Nole – I wasn’t aware that we were trying to lead the “Global South” from the north.
It strikes me that the recent murder of 11 civilians by the US Military on the high (later justified by accusing them of being members of trendy arugula, with no evidence) provides an important precedent for the Zionists in dealing with the Sumud flotilla.
The members of the Sumud flotilla have also been accused of being Terrorists, because they are attempting to feed starving children.
The Zionist entity would thus be fully justified in blowing all of them to bits with hellfire missiles and chainguns based on the precedent set by the greatest Nation on Earth.
Because FREEDOM.
We will know when something ‘unfortunate’ is ready to happen when the flotillas communications links are “disrupted.” I also note that so far, no armed naval force is protecting the flotilla. This seems a natural for the Ansar Allah naval forces. Say one or two missile gunboats accompanying the small fleet.
Making Crypto Great for Trump
Anatomy of Two Giant Deals: The U.A.E. Got Chips. The Trump Team Got Crypto Riches. (NY Times via archive.ph; 15 minute read)
Meanwhile, for everyone else:
The Newest Face of Long-Term Unemployment? College Grads. (NY Times via archive.ph)
and
Bidenomics in action!
Stay safe out there!
>Reflections on Violence
It’s hard to fathom why bolt-action rifles remain unregulated simply because they’re considered “classic,” given that assassins throughout history and across cultures have favored them for their ability to hit targets from a safe distance.
They are hunting rifles. My father was a hunter. They are in the main gun safety fetishists. My father kept his guns and ammo locked in separate cabinets, for instance.
After a series of violent incidents and left-wing terrorist attacks involving hunting rifles, Japan required individuals to have owned a shotgun for at least ten years before owning a rifle.
How are they “unregulated?” I fill out the same paperwork to purchase Ruger’s latest bolt action as I do to purchase an AR15 (from one of the hundreds of manufacturers) or an M1 Garand. It’s just as illegal to shoot someone illegally with any of the above.
Sidebar: It fascinates my little sociology degreed lawyer brain how some of the most heavily regulated jurisdictions also continue to have some of the nastiest crime rates. Why, it’s almost like firearms aren’t the real problem at all…
Do not the statistics show that gun-violence is a uniquely American pathology, mostly absent in European countries?
We sure have a lot of guns here.
Estimated number of civilian guns per capita by country
Compared to other countries (2018):
Countries have unique histories, so pump up Canada with an American level of firearms, maybe you get 2.1 deaths per 100,000 anyway. Who knows.
It’s not about gun-violence but violence. In UK they lack guns, but are wielding machetes, and spraying each other with acid, and whatnot. UK politicians campaign on banning knives, because they can’t blame guns. In the future I expect politicians to regulate ownership of a penis, in an effort to fight rape.
Several links today showing that Kirk’s shooter was in a relationship with a trans person. We also know that Kirk was shot right after an audience member asked a question about trans mass shooters. If the first part is true, it would be an astounding coincidence that the shot was fired exactly when that particular question was being addressed.
Is it known whether Kirk’s campus visit was being shown live on Kirk’s own channel? Given Kirk’s history, it does seem pretty likely that trans issues would be brought up at some point during any given campus appearance, and the shooter could have been listening to the podcast just waiting for what they considered to be the opportune moment. Or maybe the PA system at the event was loud enough that Kirk’s statements could be heard from the shooter’s vantage point? My guess is that one or both of those are true. If not though, the timing would be an astounding coincidence and suggests the possibility of an accomplice.
We’re now told that this trans person is only an aspiring trans person, still correctly referred to ad “he,” and is busy ratting out the alleged shooter. Shouldn’t this make him a MAGA hero of sorts? Life is complicated!
I can’t help spare a thought for the young man in jail. From his point of view, everyone he knew and loved has betrayed him in some way (whatever the justification). Speculating as furiously as everyone else about this situation: is it possible that the shooting was intended as a grand romantic gesture in defense of his beloved? Some have pointed out the way the firing of the bullet was timed to Kirk’s reply.
It’s so neat, it makes me suspect that Robinson = Pat C
22 yo shot Kirk from 200 yards away with a bolt action. Yeah right.
Afaik, he wasn’t a sniper or had that type of training. This was done by a professional.
Bolt action rifles are inherently more accurate than semiautomatic. In that regard, his gun was much better than the assault rifle I fired at chest sized target, at 300m distance, with iron sights, at night, when I served as a 19 yo regular soldier, very long time ago.
I found this interesting.
This red retardant is crucial in the fight against wildfires. But is it also harming the environment?, CBC. The lede,
Exact composition and impact of retardants unknown, but many agree firefighting benefits are worth it. From the article, a quote from Jen Baron, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of British Columbia’s Centre for Wildfire Coexistence
“There isn’t a ton of research on retardant environmental impacts, but they’re generally assumed to be safe for people and for the environment,” Baron says. Note that this is not necessarily her opinion or that of the larger scientific community.
In my neck of the woods we have this,
Owners of Mohawk Trail restaurant sue state over toxic chemicals threatening their health and business, Berkshire Eagle, May 1, 2025. There were PFAs in the fire retardant used in a large fire event on their property back in 1982.
Though the fire is a distant memory, a tragedy lives on. A chemical called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, more commonly known as PFAS, was used in the foam retardant sprayed to fight the 1982 fire.
The 2022 analysis of the Golden Eagle’s water supply detected 812.6 nanograms of PFAS6 per liter in the sample. Massachusetts has established a maximum contaminant level for PFAS6 of 20 nanograms per liter.
Every American Congresscritter (With the exception of a few who are too cognitively damaged to understand what is happening) is aware that Israel is committing Genocide, which includes the most heinous crimes Humans are capable of.
Every American Congresscritter is aware that supplying the arms that enables these Crimes is a violation of both International Law and American Laws, again with the exception of those too cognitively damaged to understand.
The carrot is that they are still invited to nice parties, can easily get tickets to the Superbowl, the NBA finals and concerts, and they will almost certainly be re elected.
The stick is that they might not get reelected, they would not be invited to some of the nice parties, getting tickets would be harder, headwaiters would not recognize them…and some people would call them bad names.
That’s the carrot and the stick.
This is how cheap and depraved America’s “Leaders” are and many of them make a great deal of noise about being “Christians”.
re: Another day in occupied politics
I, I will be king
And you, you will be queen
And bombing will drive them away
We can beat on them every day
We can be heroes every day
And you, you can be mean
And I, I’ll drink all the time
‘Cause we’re lovers, and that is a fact
Yes, we’re lovers, and that is that
Though Zion will keep us together
We could steal land every day
We can be heroes forever and ever
What d’you say?
I, I wish we could fly
Like the angels, like angels can fly
Though Zion, Zion will keep us together
We can beat on them forever and ever
Oh, we can be heroes every day
I, I will be king
And you, you will be queen
And bombing will drive them away
We can beat on them every day
We can be heroes every day
I, I can remember (I remember)
Standing by the wall (Western wall)
And the missiles flew above our heads (uber alles)
And we kissed as though nothing could fall (Nothing could fall)
And the blame was on the other side
Oh, we can beat on them forever and ever
Then we could be heroes every day
We can be heroes
We can be heroes
We can be heroes every day
We can be heroes
They are nothing, and nothing will help them
Of course we’re lying, and we’re getting our way
And we could be safer every day
Oh-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh, every day
Heroes
David Bowie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8LbWYKMkN0
ATW now live
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exM16ksX_vI
Elia Ayoub in the linked article “The Stories We Tell,” stated, when speaking primarily to the Left, that:
“What we need isn’t more critique…instead what we need is a real vision of change.”
I was on the far-left in the mid-1960s and head of my local SDS campus chapter. By early 1970, I was ready to go to war with the deep state and both of its major political parties and spent the next 9 years attempting different types of Left (not progressive Dems) organizing strategies.
My mental attitude, upon reflection, I would now consider to be Left Authoritarian, consisting of a type of moral absolutism, an extremely pugnacious attitude toward all ideological opponents and a willingness to use coercion, particularly when directed toward symbols of wealth and power.
I also maintained a pessimistic world view that believed that our society was inevitably headed for collapse with no prospect for any type of positive change.
What was likely ahead was only an acceleration of my personal hatred and the implicit emotional endorsement of increasing societal misery, chaos, and death.
Does anyone in the NC commentariat feel these types of emotions today?
Daily.
I still imagine a socialist (democratic) society, but democracy requires symmetric information (education) and we have been failed in that.
If we could get that far, we might evolve further socially. I am not optimistic for a gentle evolution, and not optimistic for the results of an enforced resolution.
Trump has just hit another Venezuelan boat, killing three.
His manhood must be growing larger by the day!
His little mushroom is growing larger by the day, like the Grinch’s heart? Like Vinnie Barbarino, “I am so confused!”
Per Guardian
“In Venezuela, the governing Chavistas have gone from disbelief to surprise, from surprise to indignation, and from indignation to horror” over Trump’s behaviour, the Spanish newspaper El País reported on Monday.
The newspaper said Maduro’s inner circle had initially interpreted the US naval deployment as a Trumpian negotiating tactic. “As the days passed, however, they have become convinced that Washington is preparing for an invasion,” El País reported….
….Over the weekend, five F-35 fighter jets arrived in Puerto Rico to join about half a dozen US navy destroyers already moved to the US territory recently, and support assets the administration said had been deployed to disrupt the flow of illegal drugs.
The US naval forces in the region are comprised of the Iwo Jima amphibious ready group – including the USS San Antonio, USS Iwo Jima, USS Fort Lauderdale carrying 4,500 sailors – and the 22nd marine expeditionary unit, with 2,200 marines, according to administration officials.
Boots on the ground would be a big task, but some form of direct strike on Maduro looks likely, no?
His quest in outdoing Obama is neverending. If he can’t get the Nobel, he will focus on drone strikes. Obama was known for those.
You want to know why I stopped trusting people?
Because loyalty nowadays is just a word people use until it’s no longer convenient.
They don’t care about your soul. They care about your silence.
They’ll drain you, blame you, and when you break, they’ll say you changed.
People love you when you’re quiet, obedient, broken.
But the moment you rise, they call it ego.
The truth is, I’m not hard to love. I’m just hard to lie to, hard to fool, hard to use.
I’ve been betrayed by smiles I trusted, hurt by hands I held,
and replaced in seconds by people I would have died for.
Now I stay distant, not because I hate people, but because they taught me how to love
from a distance. I don’t burn bridges. I just quietly stop lighting the way.
Let them wonder. Let them question. Because the loudest lessons come from the quietest exits.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5Hl41ffP5Y
re: Blumenthal interview / Kirk etc.
Israel, Charlie Kirk, and the Weaponization of Murder (w/ Max Blumenthal) | The Chris Hedges Report
Max Blumenthal details the tension between Charlie Kirk and Israel in his final months, and what to expect from a new era of right-wing repression in response to his killing
Chris Hedges
Sep 15, 2025
46 min.
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/israel-charlie-kirk-and-the-weaponization
Thanks, I just finished watching it. Important information on the Kirk conflict with the Zionists since July, 2025.
The Blumenthal article they talk about is very good too
https://thegrayzone.com/2025/09/12/charlie-kirk-netanyahu-israel-assassination/
Kirk had become the target of a sustained private campaign of intimidation and free-floating fury by wealthy and powerful allies of Netanyahu – figures he described in an interview as Jewish “leaders” and “stakeholders.”
“He was afraid of them,” the source emphasized.
…the president himself was terrified of Netanyahu’s wrath, and feared the consequences of defying him.
Also has good detail on the Zioniwashing done by Netanyahu and Shapiro after Kirk’s death
Within 24 hours of Kirk’s death, [arch Zionist] Shapiro announced that he would be launching his own campus speaking tour, vowing: “We’re gonna pick up that blood stained microphone where Charlie left it.”
thanks
3x NEW LEFT REVIEW
1) Against Improvement
On today’s double-speak
by Lorna Finlayson
https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/against-improvement
2) Outside the Fortress
On Britain’s new left party
Interview Oliver Eagleton with Alex Nunns
https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/outside-the-fortress
3) Stray Dogs
Spike Lee and Darren Aronofsky
by Leo Robson
https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/stray-dogs
JD Vance threatens crackdown on ‘far-left’ groups after Charlie Kirk shooting (Guardian)
JD Vance assailed what he called the “far left” and its increased tolerance for violence while guest-hosting Charlie Kirk’s podcast on Monday, saying the administration would be working to dismantle groups who celebrate Kirk’s death and political violence against their opponents….
Vance said the administration would “work to dismantle the institutions that promote violence and terrorism in our own country”.
The administration would be working to do that in the coming months and would “explore every option to bring real unity to our country and stop those who would kill their fellow Americans because they don’t like what they say”, Vance said.
Miller also detailed how the administration would use the federal government to achieve this goal.
“With God as my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, [Department of] Homeland Security and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle and destroy these networks,” Miller said, adding that they would do this “in Charlie’s name”.
Vance added: “When you see someone celebrating Charlie’s murder, call them out. Hell, call their employer. We don’t believe in political violence, but we do believe in civility, and there is no civility in the celebration of political assassination.”
Miller said he had been feeling “incredible sadness, but there’s incredible anger” and would be focusing his “righteous anger” on the “organized campaign that led to this assassination, to uproot and dismantle these terrorist networks”.
Detailing what he believes is a “vast domestic terror movement”, Miller pointed to what he said were “organized doxing campaigns, the organized riots, the organized street violence, the organized campaigns of dehumanization, vilification, posting people’s addresses, combining that with messaging designed to trigger, incite violence, and the actual organized cells that carry out and facilitate the violence”.
Purges & Pogroms, but civilly. Charlie’s dead, and his podcast audience are redirected to Vancie-ism.
It’s what Charlie would have wanted /s
Of course, Charlie’s America First views re: Israel etc are memory-holed.
This is about to get very ugly. There is no huge leftist terror org; who do you you think they will go after?
Sidebar: grimly amusing to see the Democrats “civility” line being repurposed by Vance.
This podcast is a very smart move by Vance. Dark, but smart.
It shouldn’t go unnoticed that Rumble, the platform Kirk’s podcast is on is part owned by Vance. So easy to co-opt.
Per wikipedia Rumble received investment from venture capitalists Peter Thiel, Vivek Ramaswamy and JD Vance in May 2021
Wikipedia correctly describing Vance as a VC, rather than a plucky MAGA hillbilly.
https://xcancel.com/WhiteHouse/status/1967684810106868197#m
Trump posts a snuff movie of another Venezuelan “drug ship” mass murder. Trump then retweeted by “Secretary of War Pete Hegseth”. What a world!
The first drug ship murder was a big story. Like so much else in the Trump era, the second won’t be as the shock factor is gone. This becomes just another accepted normal thing (like the IDF blowing up doctors).
Guardian story on 2nd boat-murders: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/15/trump-strike-venezuela-drug-cartel-vessel
It’s not just that Trump commited another crime, but also that people are cheering. This is what they voted for, or so they say. I believe them. USA is a war like nation, as Carlin said, and they want blood (from overseas).
re: Hollywood vs. Israel
This shift is remarkable at least considering “Hollywood”´s usual cowardice. On the other, of course, when it hurts box-office…
Also Variety actually writing
“A spokesperson for Film Workers for Palestine disputed that the Israel Film Fund operates independently from the government, saying in a statement sent to Variety that, “If complicit Israeli film institutions like the Israel Film Fund, which partners with Israel’s far-right, genocidal Ministry of Culture and Sport, and several organizations involved in the ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem, including The Jerusalem Development Authority and the Jerusalem Foundation, wish to continue working with pledge signatories, their choice is clear: end complicity in Israel’s genocide and apartheid, and endorse the full rights of the Palestinian people under international law, in line with Palestinian civil society guidelines. To date, almost none has.”
Israeli Filmmakers Warn an Industry Boycott Will Hurt ‘Those Who Are Fighting to Tell the Stories of This Conflict’
https://variety.com/2025/film/news/israeli-filmmakers-industry-boycott-hurt-anti-war-stories-1236519217/
re: Weimar Republic
I don´t like this comparison.
Assassination of mostly left politicians was a political means in Weimar.
Wiki has this Engl. site dedicated to the topic
WikiProject Political murders in the Weimar Republic
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_Political_murders_in_the_Weimar_Republic
Look under:
Main queries
-List of all collected political murders in the Weimar Republic
-Timeline of all collected political murders in the Weimar Republic
-Map of all collected political murders in the Weimar Republic
Unfortunately I don´t have my own list collected from actual books with me.
But the list is extensive.
It started with a Civil War situation in 1918/1919 where all over the country mass mobilisation of workers jeopardized elite rule.
Bavaria for instance proclaimed itself an independent radical left republic for a month – until the German Army moved in with relentless force and ended it in a bloodbath.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bavarian_Soviet_Republic
There were uprisings in Hamburg (dockworkers) and West Germany (miners) and Berlin (workers, “Spartacus” uprising) .
In Berlin and Munich almost 3000 were killed.
Weimar in general was a textbook case for the use of street violence for political means. It peaked in 1919-1921 and 1929+. But even in between the state of affairs was not comparable by any means to our present situation.
The NSDAP was investing huge amounts of money to keep an army of thugs and streetfighters – Brownshirts – to prevent people from convening in public, from discussing in public and above all to destroy their nemesis the SPD and the Communist public presence.
Latter were the only counterforce to the rise of the NSDAP´s illegal use of force to shut down public political discourse.
SA numbers rose from 30k mid 1920s to 100k late 1920s.
This method of the NDSAP included political murder. But the psychological effect on the population cannot be overestimated.
Fwiw: On the history of the SA an article from the online Bavarian Historic Lexicon
(use google-translate)
https://www.historisches-lexikon-bayerns.de/Lexikon/Sturmabteilung_(SA),_1921-1923/1925-1945
Whenever I see mention of Weimar in this context I wince. Simply because it leaves out the material reasons and factors that enabled dictatorship in the first place.
And of course the first post-1932 manifestation of this were concentration camps.
By March 1933 100k were already imprisoned. Once in a KZ you were stripped of your rights and subject to the guards´ despotism. You could be tortured or killed. Nobody cared.
Compare all this to the current situation in the US:
How many politicians and activists were murdered?
How many citizens are killed by the police?
How many Dems, Third Party members are killed?
How many Reps?
How many left protests are canceled due to the fear of police or rightwing militia killing them?
And so on.
Words and terms such as “fascism” “dictatorship” “authoritarian” which are part of the permanent vocabulary however should not gloss over fundamental differences to a reality in an era 90 years ago.
Weimar and the US today are simply two very different sets of historical eras.
Maybe one should look for other parallels?
Language might be permanent, material reality is not.
Which is one of the main issues with an information-space culture as ours.
We forget how things “behave”, relate and also differ regardless of how we address them.