Links 9/16/2025

Subscribe to Post Comments

246 comments

1. The Rev Kev September 16, 2025 at 7:18 am

   “Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade apologizes for saying mentally ill homeless people should be executed”

   The guy still has his job though so Fox News is giving him cover. Going through his Wikipedia entry, what he said was kinda par for his course-

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Kilmeade#Political_views

   Reply ↓
   1. Nikkikat September 16, 2025 at 8:06 am

      All my neighbors and a few relatives watch Fox News. They peddle hatred and misinformation all day everyday. They repeat this kind of nonsense day and night. While most of them claim to be followers of the Bible. They never ever Mention Jesus or any of his teachings. They hate the homeless, people on welfare, minorities, People from anywhere in the Middle East, except for Israel. I try to have nothing to do with these people. I see no reason to listen to this sickness. I never heard of this Charlie Kirk charactor
      But I’m pretty sure he was probably a hateful person.

      Reply ↓
   2. Lieaibolmmai September 16, 2025 at 9:56 am

      I wrote about this yesterday, but I am adding.. I have a friend with older parents (80’s), they are pretty (very?) wealthy, they are both evangelical Christians, the father watches Fox News religiously and he has a MAGA hat. And they both think I am a great person, know I have a mental illness, and that I am homeless. I have know them for over 25 years.

      I never ask them for money, but it surprises me that these Christians have never once offered me any help in any way. And they will constantly remark to my friend; “I don’t know how he does it.”

      This is a brand new and horrific form of Christianity, a false Christianity that focuses on the self, just like the western Buddhist movement. It has nothing to do about getting closer to or understanding the love of God. The only thing I find I can do is to live more like Christ, like St. Francis, and hope people can see God through me.

      But, in the end, I am glad they did not help me with any money, because it led me away from the worldly and closer to God.

      And thank you again for bringing this up, because I think it is an important worrying sign about where things might head.

      I also want to thank Glenda for her comment yesterday!

      Reply ↓
      1. Tom Stone September 16, 2025 at 1:17 pm

         Charlie Kirk wanted an end to the separation of Church and State because the USA is, or should be, a ‘Christian Nation”.
         Which immediately raises the question of who is a Christian.
         I have asked several people who espouse this view just what that means and have yet to recieve a coherent response.
         It’s a virtue signalling dog whistle, no more and no less.

         Reply ↓
      2. Kouros September 16, 2025 at 8:07 pm

         The prosperity gospel. The golden calf has fully sublimized in the person of Jesus. The ultimate transubstantiation.

         Reply ↓
   3. Kurtismayfield September 16, 2025 at 10:52 am

      This is just the rational endgame of neoliberalism. If you are not economically viable, then you deserve to die.

      Reply ↓
      1. marku52 September 16, 2025 at 2:57 pm

         The “cost of living” is a horrific statement, once you work it thorough to its logical endpoint.

         Reply ↓
2. Mikerw0 September 16, 2025 at 7:23 am

   All AI all the time.

   From the FT, quite an indictment of a fantasy. There is no way this capital spending occurs, ever.

   https://www.ft.com/content/efe1e350-62c6-4aa0-a833-f6da01265473#comments-anchor

   Reply ↓
   1. Yves Smith Post authorSeptember 17, 2025 at 10:01 am

      ZOMG, skimmed and need to read carefully. Thanks!

      Reply ↓
3. Afro September 16, 2025 at 7:23 am

   I’m not surprised to see Netanyahu call out Qatar, I am surprised to see him call out China. What is going on? Why would he do that?

   I doubt that China is actually managing anti-Israel bot farms. I think, that what they’re actually doing is allowing free discussion. And maybe he simply can’t stand that they’re being somewhat resistant to bullying.

   Reply ↓
   1. Steve H. September 16, 2025 at 9:52 am

      > Iran, Israel, and the Failing Global Order Mark Wauck. Interview of Trita Parsi

      This interview has high explanatory value. Time is an element.

      Reply ↓
      1. lyman alpha blob September 16, 2025 at 10:56 am

         That interview mentions Richard Perle early on. Perle is one of the worst neocon Zionists and I remember him being confronted once about his loyalties, and whether they were primarily to Israel or the US. Perle replied that of course his loyalties were with the US first, but it just so happened that US policies were Israeli policies. What a fortunate coincidence for him!

         We haven’t heard much from Perle publicly in years, but a search shows that he is still fogging a mirror somewhere. I’d love to know what he’s been up to and whose ear he’s been whispering into lately.

         Reply ↓
         1. anahuna September 16, 2025 at 5:34 pm

            Lest we forget…

            Perle figures among others in this list from Chris Hedges’ “Pimps of War” (Salon, Apr 2022j:

            “”The Biden administration is filled with these ignoramuses, including Joe Biden. Victoria Nuland, the wife of Robert Kagan, serves as Biden’s undersecretary of state for political affairs. Antony Blinken is secretary of state. Jake Sullivan is national security adviser. They come from this cabal of moral and intellectual trolls that includes Kimberly Kagan, the wife of Fred Kagan, who founded the Institute for the Study of War, William Kristol, Max Boot, John Podhoretz, Gary Schmitt, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, David Frum and others. Many were once staunch Republicans or, like Nuland, served in Republican and Democratic administrations. Nuland was the principal deputy foreign policy adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney.”

            Reply ↓
      2. Afro September 16, 2025 at 11:40 am

         Thanks for the suggestion, that was an insightful interview, for example I was not familiar with Joe the 12 day war revealed a lot about Iranian nationalism and the regime ‘s need to properly manage it.

         Reply ↓
4. The Rev Kev September 16, 2025 at 7:39 am

   ‘Frankie Stockes
   @realStockes
   This guy was an eyewitness to the Charlie Kirk assassination. Why were his colleagues trying to shut him up?’

   What the hell was that? Why did that group try to stop that video using violence? He should be giving an interview to the FBI as a materiel witness. Are Red Shirts the new Brown Shirts? That group should know that usually things do not work out well for Red Shirts. The comments are interesting-

   https://xcancel.com/realStockes/status/1967242879170191514

   Reply ↓
   1. Lieaibolmmai September 16, 2025 at 10:31 am

      If you watch the full video (linked in the same post 37:00) of the guys in the red shirts you can here the interviewer saying those guys were saying “someone died today” so it might have just been a cult like emotional reaction from another Turing Point member.

      I think many of these articles are way off, including “Why does Tyler Robinson look nothing like the pictures of Charlie Kirk’s alleged killer?” In that article they are using a AI enhanced image of the video surveillance, which is not trustworthy.

      IMHO, what we have is a kid who has Asperger’s (lazy right eye, very good in engineering, gender dysmorphia, dropped out first semester, social issues (shy)) who was steeped in internet culture which led him to clout chasing extreme actions and possibly psychiatric medication issues.

      I think the obvious answer is that we have another young man who was suffering and was drawn in by an algorithm that did not care about him.

      Reply ↓
5. Steve H. September 16, 2025 at 7:39 am

   > Terrestrial water storage capacity is declining fast and is hardly getting any attention Bill Mitchell

   An extra wrinkle – depleted aquifers can collapse. The pressure of the water keeps particles separated, but when it’s drained the weight of the overburden compacts the soils, removing volume in a way that may not be restored when rehydrated.

   More extreme weather can be a problem, too. Our young friends are on a well, and after heavy rains the filters clog rapidly with soil, mostly clay. It’s a karst region with lots of void spaces. The well drillers suggested drilling another well, deeper, but that’s five figures for a dice roll. So they’re hauling water from town for drinking water, once a week. At least the town is using reverse osmosis.

   Reply ↓
   1. The Rev Kev September 16, 2025 at 8:57 am

      ‘An extra wrinkle – depleted aquifers can collapse.’

      Got that right as proved by a guy called Joseph Poland way back in 1977-

      https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/location-maximum-land-subsidence-us-levels-1925-and-1977

      I keep a copy of that image on my computer as a reminder of what can happen.

      Reply ↓
      1. Milton September 16, 2025 at 2:23 pm

         Even with controls in place to limit groundwater depletion, the area around where that image was taken, has subsided another 3-5′ since 1977. So the rate of subsidence has decrease but it is still subsiding nonetheless.

         Reply ↓
6. IM Doc September 16, 2025 at 7:41 am

   Re: US Companies Fire Pilots, Teachers, Health Care Workers………….

   I have taught medical ethics for decades. A large part of that course is professional behavior. As I have said repeatedly, the tenets of medical ethics are to protect the physician just as much as the patient.

   I have talked to students for 30 years, I have spoken to colleagues all my life, and I speak to students now – Do not ever say anything or tip anyone off in any way about your personal politics. Healers of any kind should never do that. It is never a good thing in the relationship with your patient. Your patients may talk to you about politics and if they are intent on doing so, fine. But you should not respond in any way.

   This has been the professional approach for millennia. Until the past 5-10 years or so. Now, we have the ethics professors of the elite medical schools on MSNBC for years demeaning the politics of anyone who dares says a word about COVID vaccines. We have physicians wearing tokens of political groups – ie rainbows, BLM, MAGA, don’t tread on me, whatever, all over their clothes. We have physicians showing up to work looking like Vikings or pirates with so much metal attachments on their noses, tongues and ears. We have had physicians going to courtrooms and getting wide attention in their communities about political issues that have nothing to do with medicine, only to see their patient panels decimated.

   I want to make certain that everyone understands the consequences to the physician from what happened this week in New Jersey.

   I do not know the full details but I know enough. In a hospital room, with a fully alert and engaged patient, a surgeon was making rounds. The news about Charlie Kirk broke over the TV in the patient room. The younger nurse said something like “Oh, that is just terrible.”. (By the way, that is not political speech, that is being a caring human). The doctor then said something like -“I don’t like Charlie Kirk. He deserved this.” FYI, that is political speech – but is also ghoulish speak – and under zero circumstances should this ever be done in front of a patient or in my opinion anyone.

   My understanding is that the nurse said nothing at the time. But she did go to her superiors with her concerns this was done in front of a patient. New Jersey is of course a blue state. The recent pattern in medicine has been in the more blue states, the hospitals are far more deferential to the physicians than the employees, far more than they should ever be, and the nurse was instantly canned. Yes, it is an obvious pattern – it is talked about far and wide in the profession. At times, just like this, it is insane. The nurse went online, hired an attorney, and actually made it onto network news with the story. The hospital was so bombed with complaints and bad reviews that it actually took its Google review pages offline. I now understand that the nurse has been rehired and the doctor has been fired/resigned/whatever.

   People must understand what happens to MDs in this situation. There is a system called the National Practitioner Database. NPDB. It is like a national credit bureau of doctor’s sanctions, lawsuits, peer review issues, behavior problems, etc. Certainly, a firing or a resignation will be put there the next day. On every application I have ever filled out for a license, board status, or a job, there are numerous questions about whether you have ever had NPDB reports, and then you have to sign a waiver for them to pull your NPDB report. Surgeons, for obvious reasons, must have a hospital to work in. They are going to have to have hospital credentials. This particular surgeon may never work again. Or at least in a hospital of any kind of reputation. It has been unnerving to me in recent years, the docs who have undoubtedly serious problems on their NPDB being hired or given privileges anyway.

   Medical students, doctors, nurses, whoever can read this – and I will be bringing this up again repeatedly the with students this year —- DO NOT DO POLITICS WITH YOUR PATIENTS. Shut your mouth, get your rainbow pins off, just be you, standing right there with your patient as the only focus of your attention. And for God’s sake do not ever ever ever say someone deserves a 30-06 shell in the neck not only in the patient care arena but in your entire life.

   Reply ↓
   1. Louis Fyne September 16, 2025 at 7:59 am

      find it fascinating that sometime between, say, 2012 and 2018, people’s “internal filter” turned off en-masse in the real world.

      politics = secular religion and let me signal to you via my rhetorical flummage that I’m part of the right tribe, just like a bird in the Galapagos

      Reply ↓
      1. ThirtyOne September 16, 2025 at 9:58 am

         Maybe the rise of smartphones and social notworking are responsible?

         https://newatlas.com/mobile-technology/smartphone-history-review-2010-2019/

         https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_social_media

         Reply ↓
      2. Luckless Pedestrian September 16, 2025 at 12:11 pm

         Based on social media behavior, and driving behavior, I’ve formed the opinion that everyone who had/has Covid has had their executive function materially compromised.

         Reply ↓
         1. festoonic September 16, 2025 at 12:42 pm

            This cannot be said often enough.

            Reply ↓
         2. SES September 16, 2025 at 7:31 pm

            I agree. This likelihood is my greatest fear as my partner and I are recovering from our first Covid infection. After years of always wearing N95s indoors everywhere, we’re pretty sure we caught it outdoors, where we were unmasked, from a neighbour.

            Reply ↓
   2. Jonathan Holland Becnel September 16, 2025 at 8:19 am

      ABSOLUTELY DO CLASS POLITICS WITH YOUR PATIENTS.

      IM DOC, do you not see the bigger picture here?

      Doctors SHOULD be leading the way here.

      It’s literally GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH.

      Reply ↓
      1. IM Doc September 16, 2025 at 8:35 am

         The capitals and the screaming make me think this is snark. So excuse me if I am not in on the joke.

         Sorry, that is not my job. And that is entirely inappropriate as well.
         My job is the health of the patients who are in front of me.
         I do not have time to do class warfare or anything else. People are so much more dramatically chronically ill these days, I have time for nothing else.
         Also, being a class warrior is just not in my makeup.

         Reply ↓
         1. Jonathan Holland Becnel September 16, 2025 at 1:22 pm

            Definitely NOT sarcastic. And I was definitely emphasizing that those with money who agree with NC political economics actually DO something to unite their local area outside the Duopoly.

            It’s always interesting to me reading the Class Traitors on here who are neck deep in the evils of our economic system who are too tired to do anything else.

            Shouldn’t we do a Revolution so you aren’t balls deep in the chronically ill?

            Anyways, thanks for replying, my friend.

            Reply ↓
            1. Revenant September 16, 2025 at 6:11 pm

               Perhaps you could both get behind the idea of the clinical equivalent of Liberation Theology priests, a kind of revolutionary barefoot doctor practice where the patients know the credo of the physician?

               But I agree with IM Doc that, outside of a self-selecting milieu, the physician is there for their doctoring, not their politicking. Same for taxi drivers, waiters, judges (!) Etc. The personal is not the professional.

               Reply ↓
            2. Walter September 16, 2025 at 7:17 pm

               Apropos of very little. Just a ramble…

               I shared a bed (well, when she didn’t stay at the hospital all night) with a physician for fifteen years or so. Two degrees, residency and fellowship from Harvard and its hospitals (MD from a lesser school, but her dad was the indispensable guy there, so no debt). Twenty years so far in a specialty treating older and sicker patients, at a hospital that sees more Black and less well off people, more men than women (hasn’t been privatized yet, hope that don’t give it away :-)).

               She shares books with her continuing patients from time to time, gift or loan, mostly political in nature, all more to the left. Sometimes Dave Zirin’s books: sports and politics, a good way to get guys interested. She’s been doing it for well over ten years. In her case, I don’t think it gets in the way of care or patient doctor relationship. The patients like her very well, more than her boss does. It ain’t just the books, she goes above and beyond, picks up things that primary care or other departments should have taken care of.

               She can’t possibly have time to talk much politics with her patients during their visits. A few words back and forth between friends, kinda like. She would NEVER say “Good shot!” about Mr. Kirk, and probably not about Mr. Thompson, either.

               As with IM Doc, her patients have probably tended a bit sicker the last few years. There are more staff in her department now, but I don’t think she gets home any earlier.

               She’s not as obviously class-based in her politics as you, Jonathan (or as me), but she recognizes that that is a profoundly important thing (our daughters, despite a lot of exposure to identity-based thinking, are really more in the class area). She has a brighter view of the likely future that I do. I hope that’s a good thing.

               In summary, here’s a doctor who does a LITTLE BIT of class politics with her patients. But it’s a hard thing. The authorities would disapprove, if they noticed. There isn’t really time for deep interaction. In a way, I think both of you are right about doctors, patients, and [[[radical—hush!]]] politics—what a wishy-washy thing to say.

               Me, I’m only toenail-deep in the evils of the economic system, and *I’M* too tired to do anything else. I hope to do better in the future.

               Reply ↓
               1. Jonathan Holland Becnel September 16, 2025 at 9:18 pm

                  Thank you for the reply, big dawg!

                  Your partner sounds right up my alley.

                  Really appreciated you sharing that story.

                  I guess I’m my daily life/work I always have time to subtly critique our economic system and create a greater awareness that we are all in this together.

                  It’s like a primal instinct like a pack leader warning the pride about outside danger.

                  Simply acknowledging the barbarity of our system bonds you and the other person together.

                  At least for me.

                  Pretty much all of the successful revolutionaries have come from the Bourgeoisie so that’s why I’m always pushing NC and and IM DOC here to do more.

                  Like the People are ready!

                  Give us a future we can at least fight for instead of all this reactionary nonsense.

                  Reply ↓
                  1. IM Doc September 16, 2025 at 9:42 pm

                     What makes you think that I am not already doing all kinds of things in my own way, within the bounds of my profession’s customs, and to really help people. My wife and I have given quite a bit of cash over the years to the Democratic Party and its candidates. That money is now being used elsewhere to help real people with real problems.

                     Reply ↓
                     1. Jonathan’s Holland Becnel September 16, 2025 at 11:02 pm

                        Good.

                        Help start a new local party based around Economic Populism.

                        Time to bring back the old ways, Doc!

                        Reply ↓
                        1. skippy September 17, 2025 at 12:48 am

                           No new party without corporate/wealth set funding mate[.] See Citizens United.

                           At least IM Doc has diverted funds away from the political legacy parities in favor of a more personally directed outcome and hopefully without top heavy admin.

                           Back in the early days of NC there was a unpacking of how mobs like Sierra Club/TED/ et al was neoliberalized at at admin level e.g. make it a commodity in the market place, seek absentee investors, PR/Marketing means more than results or concrete social benefits …

                           IM Doc served …. thought good would avail over dark … alas did not have the information about how mobs like MPS/FEE/Powell memo were shaping society one ratchet click at a time via generational pigeonholing – market based framework and not sociology. Dead set mate … remember just post GFC on this blog and some Libertarian cultist in the jest of debating meta data said “we will win as we control the data/media. Not that there were crazy dramas with the data just too start with – ideological blinkers thingy …

                           Reply ↓
                           1. Jonathan Holland Becnel September 17, 2025 at 11:34 am

                              Herd.
   3. The Rev Kev September 16, 2025 at 8:23 am

      ‘We have physicians wearing tokens of political groups – ie rainbows, BLM, MAGA, don’t tread on me, whatever, all over their clothes.’

      Yeah, that’s probably not a good idea. As a patient you would wonder if your doctor has your best interest at heart if you disagree with the ‘bling’ that they are wearing. You would hope that a doctor’s office would be neutral ground where the outside world stops at the door. Some doctor’s should know that just because they have a political opinion doesn’t mean that they have to share it in a professional setting. That way leads to madness.

      Reply ↓
      1. alrhundi September 16, 2025 at 11:57 am

         On the other hand, a Black or gay patient might feel a lot more comfortable with a doctor who is wearing a small pin signaling support, especially considering statistics and historic outcomes for Black people with White doctors.

         Reply ↓
         1. IM Doc September 16, 2025 at 12:03 pm

            I am sorry to inform you but your statement about statistics is very questionable at best. The studies showing that “Black people do poorly with White doctors” are now roundly used as how NOT to do statistical medicine.

            I just went through this with my students the other day.

            There is a huge problem with every one of these studies I know of. There is a profound selection bias. These are largely done in big academic centers and the patients are the sickest of the sick.

            But that does not stop malign actors from spreading these “findings” all over the Internet. Anything to keep the crowds upset.

            Reply ↓
            1. alrhundi September 16, 2025 at 3:48 pm

               If you have any proof around that claim I’d be interested in seeing it. As far as I can tell, this is a problem identified decades ago. Regardless, the perception is still there, and my point still stands that a simple show of support would ease that tension.

               Reply ↓
               1. IM Doc September 16, 2025 at 7:40 pm

                  I tried to post a response hours ago and it has not made it up so I am guessing it is somewhere in comment purgatory.

                  Medical conclusions like the one being discussed here – that white doctors give poor care to black patients – are based on very large observational cohort studies. These are among the most flimsy in medicine. They are scarred by all kinds of biases not the least of which is selection bias. It makes them almost unusable. Unfortunately, so much of our dietary studies regarding longevity and other health matters fit into the same problem. We who have to sift through this for our patients and research subjects know this implicitly. These are not studies to ever hang your hat on. And there are big problems. These often come out with much fanfare – Oranges prevent MIs! – Eat 3 avocadoes a day and you will never have a stroke! – And unfortunately to the American public who knows no better, this is often presented as completely “settled science.” Very unfortunately, there are also very malign influencers and charlatans who cherry pick through the medical literature and parrot these things to their followers. You can find any observational study to confirm anything you ever want to say. It really is quite a racket.

                  These racial profiling studies are no different. I have found examples in my life’s reading of people on two completely different sides of the aisle using the same study to make completely opposite arguments. It really is something to behold.

                  I could put on her dozens of articles and commentary about the specific issue you raise – but they are in the medical literature and you will not be able to access them. So, I am putting 2 substacks on here that discuss this issue in the literature and are at least more than tangentially related to your comment. These are written in the past several months. This is from a substack called sensible med. MDs, very versed in statistics, writing things about overall trends or individual studies that go viral. I will be happy to get you more detailed discussions if you like – but they are written in medical language.

                  https://www.sensible-med.com/p/race-in-medicine

                  Dr. Cifu here, in recognition of the problem of these race studies being not so well-done, recommends that we all just quit using race in our notes in the first place. He makes some points about this that are interesting to contemplate.

                  https://www.sensible-med.com/p/the-health-equity-agenda-is-a-bad

                  This one is another writer discussing how the entire concept of “health equity” can never really be understood by studies in the first place, and furthermore, how adherents of the conclusions of the studies may be hurting the patients far more than helping them.

                  Hope this helps. I encourage everyone with interest in medical statistics and medical issues that spring from research that has gone viral to look at this site before you incorporate the suggestions or findings into your life or thoughts.

                  Reply ↓
               2. chris September 16, 2025 at 7:50 pm

                  Not a doctor, but as a professional I too have been told to be extra careful when dealing with clients and workers because of negative outcomes due to racial discordance.

                  But in my profession of engineering, and in medicine, the results people refer to when supporting an argument that white professionals don’t treat minorities fairly, aren’t well founded. Here’s an article explaining that the results people look for in medicine are giving mixed results at best.

                  Here’s another publication from the organization Do No Harm that discusses the same issue. However, Do No Harm clearly states that its mission includes pushing back against DEI. So it definitely has an editorial position it is really representing in that document. Doesn’t mean what they’re saying isn’t accurate though.

                  Reply ↓
   4. Carolinian September 16, 2025 at 9:08 am

      So just to be clear you approve of the doctor being fired or is the correct answer that neither one of them should have been fired?

      Some of us who have had occasion to experience the medical system don’t find physician humility to be a common characteristic and would suggest that the doctor/patient power relationship is such that they can pretty much say anything they want and get away with it–as long as it doesn’t involve Charlie Kirk? Kirk himself claimed to be a “free speech absolutist” but was he so in the same sense that Jonathan Turley declares himself a free speech absolutist as long as it doesn’t have anything to do with Israel? Consistency in these ethical rules seems to be fuzzy at best.

      Reply ↓
      1. Chris Smith September 16, 2025 at 9:36 am

         If a doctor pushes their politics on me as a patient, I will fire them. If a doctor in an emergency room is going on about how someone with whom they disagree “deserved” to die, then I do not want that doctor treating me. I cannot be sure that the offending doctor will do their aboslute best if they think I am a nonbeliever. The doctor told me who they were, and I best beleive them since it is my health in their hands.

         Reply ↓
      2. Steve H. September 16, 2025 at 10:21 am

         Having worked in the medical system, physician humility is generally an oxymoron. The professional frame must not allow Dunning-Kruger assumptions of superiority to invade. ‘What does that have to do with your practice?’

         The first crack in the frame I saw was early Covid, an ER doc referring to a patient as ‘Wheezy’ (ha ha ha), which designation indicated vaccine status.

         Reply ↓
         1. IM Doc September 16, 2025 at 10:30 am

            This is a good point.

            Because those docs were following the narrative of the day to smite the unvaxxed, their behavior was not only allowed but applauded. This has led to an entitlement that physicians can behave this way with no consequences.

            The hospitals and profession can now see the extreme reputational risk and are quickly reverting back to the previous framework.

            Reply ↓
      3. IM Doc September 16, 2025 at 10:25 am

         Absolutely the doctor should have been fired. You just simply cannot behave like that in front of people under your care.

         On multiple occasions, twenty or so, I have been on medical staff committees that have terminated privileges for far far less than this. Things like using the f bomb in front of patients or calling a nurse the c word. Fired in the blink of an eye.

         What grieves me the most is that saying anyone deserved to be shot in the neck would even be thought to be ok in the context of professional behavior.

         Reply ↓
         1. Laughingsong September 16, 2025 at 11:40 am

            I would be terrified to be in the care of a doctor who could say that someone deserved to die. Maybe he’ll start thinking I deserve to die if I say the wrong thing.

            Reply ↓
         2. Carolinian September 16, 2025 at 12:28 pm

            I’m not endorsing what the doctor said or disputing that he shouldn’t have said it. But you seem to be saying that what you describe as a career ending punishment is appropriate for an off hand remark. I think that is extreme and may have more to do with his target than his lack of necessary decorum. Weren’t there other means of discipline that would keep others from doing the same?

            Reply ↓
            1. IM Doc September 16, 2025 at 1:11 pm

               See above –
               It is not the target it is the statement.
               I have seen doctors fired for much much less. I have also seen doctors who have been very contrite and given a second chance. Part of this story we do not know is how he behaved after the incident. That may very well shed some light on this. But in general, in our world today, reacting to the years of laxity, no, there is usually no mercy shown.
               The last doctor in my orbit that was fired about a year ago – because he was standing in the ER hallways in full earshot of multiple patients and referred to a patient in a very inappropriate manner with slang terms that my grandma would have washed my mouth out for. Fired. No appeal.
               It is the standard of discipline in the profession. It has become very lax lately – and this is why this is such a shock to people. I do not know what else to say.

               Reply ↓
               1. Roxan September 16, 2025 at 1:40 pm

                  IM Doc, you are, of course 100% correct about professional behavior. Patients are often scared or even ‘hero worship’ a doc who helped them out of a bad situation. I have done so myself. The last thing you want to do is make your patient wonder if you are somehow basing their care on race, politics, etc.

                  Reply ↓
   5. ACPAL September 16, 2025 at 10:03 am

      Anyone who speaks or writes anything politic can be punished for it be they firemen, plumbers, farmers, or surgeons. Imagine a world where everyone hides their opinions for fear of retribution and/or losing their job. Someone has to speak up or the Idi Amin’s will rule the world.

      Reply ↓
      1. IM Doc September 16, 2025 at 10:49 am

         I do not have to imagine that world, I lived in it for the first half of my life, and I would be very happy to go back to the far more positive culture in that world. And my world in the first half of my life was not ruled by Idi Amin, it was ruled by LBJ.

         When I was a kid up until about 40 or so, absolutely no one said a word about politics in polite company. There were very intense things going around in the background like Watergate – but no one said a word. The plumbers, firemen, farmers, doctors, whoever. I know there were intense discussions about issues like this in the family at the dinner table, but not so much in transactional activities in the world. I most certainly did not live a sheltered life – I hear this same lament constantly from people my age. I have heard lectures from historians who know a lot about totalitarian states talk about how this is a defining feature of totalitarianism – that everything, everything is injected with politics.

         Reply ↓
         1. Carolinian September 16, 2025 at 1:13 pm

            You are undoubtedly correct that medicine was different and more professional in the past. But the mid 20th c world I remember was totally about politics and contempt for political opponents. Red scare, Vietnam, civil rights–Billy Joel made a song about it.

            And just as much of what Trump does seems to come from the Dems, the demonizing of opponents that you complain about started with Newt Gingrich who, when SC’s Susan Smith drowned her babies in a pond, blamed it on the Democrats. There was a big Moral Majority movement during Reagan time as well with the abortion issue inspiring accusations of murder and clinic bombings.

            We aren’t fleeing from that world but instead returning to it. Indeed Trump seems to want to make America Reagan again. This latest murder is all too in line with our past as well as present.

            Reply ↓
            1. IM Doc September 16, 2025 at 1:36 pm

               I see your point – and please note I used the word transactional activities in the world. There were protests – my parents were involved. But there was no politics injected into their interaction with the plumber. Our plumber last month told me that he has shown up for jobs and been told to leave because he has an American flag on his van. And this has happened repeatedly. This was not going on in my childhood or young adulthood at all.

               Reply ↓
               1. Bazarov September 16, 2025 at 3:58 pm

                  There was a time not so long ago (as in a mere three decades) when it was common for white parents–I heard it in many homes when I was a child–to tell their children they were not allowed to play with black children or to bring home blacks friends, god forbid a black boyfriend or girlfriend! They would warn each other not to move into such and such a neighborhood because a black family had moved there. They would never, ever have allowed a black plumber into their homes. These were people, by the way, who insisted they were not racist.

                  That to me is as pure an example of “politics interjected into” everyday interactions as it gets.

                  Reply ↓
               2. Procopius September 18, 2025 at 7:26 am

                  I was in high school during The McCarthy Years. I remember the blacklists. I don’t think life in America was ever as clean and ideal as you remember.

                  Reply ↓
            2. nippersdad September 16, 2025 at 2:25 pm

               “We aren’t fleeing that world but instead returning to it. Indeed, Trump seems to want to make America Reagan again.”

               Not an argument, just an observation: Far from returning to it, I feel like that era is so far in the past that we may never achieve that degree of rationality again. Not a fan of Reagan, but when Democrats are aching for wars with Russia, China, Iran and Venezuela simultaneously you know you are through the looking glass. Obama largely won his first term by saying he would be anti-war even as Clinton was touring the country with Madeleine Albright saying that half a million kids were a small price to pay….Schumer’s complete rejection of the working class in the Democratic coalition was evident when he said that (paraphrased) for every blue collar worker we lose we will gain three Republican wine moms out in the suburbs.

               Is there anyone left in either party who can be said to be to the left of Reagan these days?

               Reagan filled pits with Nicaraguans, but he didn’t wholeheartedly endorse genocides and send out the troops to beat up faculty and students at university campuses just for asking our representatives to follow the law. He had the grace to make his wars invisible and force Israel to back down in Lebanon. Now both parties are rabidly trying to out war criminal / trash the Bill of Rights each other in full daylight.

               Gingrich cultivated the culture wars so that the Dems could move into the Republican political space on the Overton Window, and he succeeded to the degree that he can now call his own Heritage Foundation bills (Obamacare) communism when the Democrats pass it.

               IOW, I wish they were that rational.

               Reply ↓
               1. alrhundi September 16, 2025 at 4:32 pm

                  I think this is a symptom of how much and how easily information is shared. We live in a world where we can all follow a Nicaraguan or Palestinian on Twitter and get live updates on war crimes. This requires some level of acknowledgement because it can’t be ignored or controlled as it was in the past.

                  Reply ↓
               2. Carolinian September 16, 2025 at 5:27 pm

                  All true enough but here at the economic policy blog Reagan’s name is mud. And environmental policy wise he was also a disaster.

                  Plus, bad actor.

                  Reply ↓
            3. erstwhile September 16, 2025 at 2:28 pm

               I think that she originally blamed a black man for the murder. Oh, newt, america has need for thee now.

               Reply ↓
         2. Jonathan Holland Becnel September 16, 2025 at 1:43 pm

            While you (and my parents and everyone around here in the suburbs in Metairie, LA) weren’t talking politics, the Wealthy literally couped America.

            And now that the chickens have come home to roost, we are supposed to NOT talk and let everything die?

            Yeah f that bro.

            Reply ↓
      2. mrsyk September 16, 2025 at 11:09 am

         Good reference. I’ve been considering the parallels between this public, government led war on “the left” and Big Daddy’s persecution of homosexuals in Uganda.

         Reply ↓
      3. Jonathan Holland Becnel September 16, 2025 at 1:39 pm

         Facts.

         Long Live the 1st Amendment.*

         *except at work where’s it’s the Gestapo and Stasi and everyone snitches on you to Management.

         Reply ↓
         1. Yves Smith Post authorSeptember 17, 2025 at 10:21 am

            I am late to this but you have been out of line.

            The First Amendment applies ONLY to government restriction of speech. Nearly all employees are employed at will. You can be fired for no reason at all.

            Employers are completely within their rights to set speech and dress codes. Ross Perot famously required white shirts, blue suits, short haircuts and no facial hair,

            Reply ↓
            1. Jonathan Holland Becnel September 17, 2025 at 11:41 am

               Just pushing a little bit is all!

               You know me!

               America 🇺🇸

               Reply ↓
            2. anahuna September 17, 2025 at 12:04 pm

               Granted, Yves, but it leaves me with a question: how were employees expected to know in advance that quoting things Kirk had said and drawing conclusions about the consequences was against the employer’s code.

               Reply ↓
   6. Wukchumni September 16, 2025 at 10:17 am

      I guess its an improvement that evangs can only kill jobs now, versus a few hundred years ago if you didn’t believe in the right deity, it was curtains for you.

      Reply ↓
      1. IM Doc September 16, 2025 at 10:27 am

         Sorry
         This has absolutely zero to do with religion or evangelicals. That has nothing to do with this at all. This is professional behavior in front of a patient.

         Reply ↓
         1. Wukchumni September 16, 2025 at 10:32 am

            It has everything to do with evangs, who’s pushing for the ouster of those that didn’t agree with whom I found to be in my research, a liar the likes of Donald J. Trump, if not worse. A distortionist’s distortionist.

            Reply ↓
            1. IM Doc September 16, 2025 at 10:54 am

               Sorry, you are absolutely wrong. This has nothing to do with Trump. This has nothing to do with evangelicals. This has to do with a physician stating that someone deserves to die after watching an assassination on TV. When you are an employed physician like I am, there are morals clauses in the contracts. I just looked mine up – one of the lines in the morals clause is “making disparaging comments that are deemed inappropriate by community standards”.

               Furthermore, this is absolutely unprofessional behavior in the practice of medicine.

               Reply ↓
               1. Wukchumni September 16, 2025 at 10:58 am

                  I get it, you want to kill other people’s jobs where they don’t agree with your assessment of who Charlie Kirk was, its obvious. What’s your next step?

                  Reply ↓
                  1. Laughingsong September 16, 2025 at 1:37 pm

                     My goodness! This seems uncharacteristic….

                     Reply ↓
                     1. JBird4049 September 16, 2025 at 3:36 pm

                        It is uncharacteristic for him.

                        And it shows just how volatile all this is.

                        Reply ↓
                  2. Don September 16, 2025 at 6:22 pm

                     Doesn’t proclaiming support (and “he deserved to die” is definitely expressing support!) for the killing of someone who expressed opinions which you vehemently disagree with, but which are more-or-less within the parameters of current public discourse, differ from expressing support (for example) for the killing of an active mass murderer of children in, say, Gaza?

                     From what little I know about him, I disagree with most, if not all, of Charlie Kirk’s opinions (although he apparently was beginning to change his views on Israel), but I don’t believe that he deserved to die.

                     Do you?

                     From what I know of you, I doubt it.

                     Reply ↓
               2. lyman alpha blob September 16, 2025 at 11:16 am

                  I think we can make a distinction between a doctor saying in front of a patient that someone deserved to die, and others saying similar things online and not in conjunction with their jobs.

                  You made a good case as to why the doctor should be fired. In my opinion though, the others mentioned in the article you referenced did not deserve to lose their jobs. I don’t know why so many people feel the need to post their hot takes about everything on social media and put their actual names to it, but that’s where we are. And the MSNBC pundit is being paid for his political takes. Most of what he said was very anodyne. His suggestion that maybe a supporter had killed Kirk accidentally with celebratory gunfire was pretty stupid, but not worthy of dismissal.

                  Reply ↓
                  1. anahuna September 16, 2025 at 12:09 pm

                     Chiming in on this general topic, I offer two contrasting approaches to the recent public murder of Charlie Kirk. One from Glenn Greenwald and the other from Shahid Bolsen, who sometimes reminds me of Malcolm X.* As you will see, if you listen, they come to opposite conclusions, but neither is facile or motivated by political gain. Worthy of respect, from my point of view.

                     *Though I’m a bit fond of Larry Johnson, I squirmed in horror when he suggested that Charlie Kirk was “our Malcolm X.”

                     https://youtu.be/XMFwj30seEg?si=F5oAzPZ-uSjarDBi

                     https://scheerpost.com/2025/09/14/charlie-kirks-assassination-glenn-greenwald-reacts/

                     And for those of you just wanting to get out of this world, here’s a ride with Bowie:

                     https://youtu.be/9_M3uw29U1U?si=hAKLBmQHXHSxlOLG

                     Reply ↓
                     1. lyman alpha blob September 16, 2025 at 12:39 pm

                        That is an excellent video from Bolsen – highly recommended. He’s particularly good in pointing out who benefits from Kirk’s death and that he is far more valuable dead than alive for the current power structure.

                        Reply ↓
                        1. vao September 16, 2025 at 12:49 pm

                           Indeed. Bolsen expresses much more eloquently and clearly what I already suspected from the reactions about Kirk’s assassination without knowing anything about the victim.

                           Reply ↓
                  2. erstwhile September 16, 2025 at 2:44 pm

                     When I was in the eighth grade, my geography teacher asked me once, in class, what nationality I was. After telling him, he said, pretty smart for a polack. Should he have been fired? No, I was raised in a very diverse community of many, many ethnic groups, and I didn’t take offense at his remark. It was just the way that the people got along…yet I still recall it. To paraphrase bob dylan, I was so much wiser then, I’m dumber than that now.

                     Reply ↓
   7. mrsyk September 16, 2025 at 11:33 am

      I’m not old enough to remember JFK’s assassination and various reactions in the wake. I learned from my high school Social Studies teacher that school children in the south stood up and cheered when they heard the news. I remember being jaw-dropped surprised that anybody would act that way. I imagine if there were smartphones back then there would have been similar offensive posting online.

      Here’s an interesting 2013 article from the USA Today’s sports pages which describes the polarity at the time.

      America’s (Most Hated) Team: ’63 Cowboys vilified by mourning nation after JFK assassination

      Reply ↓
      1. judy2shoes September 16, 2025 at 2:43 pm

         mrsyk, I can’t refute what you said about school children in the South standing up and cheering about JFK’s assassination; what I can tell you is that I was 12 years old in junior high school in MS when my classmates and I heard about it via the principle’s announcement over the intercom. I saw none of the behavior you describe; what I did see was a bunch of students wandering around the halls (we were between classes), confused and trying to make some sense of it. He was the President; who would do that? An interesting factoid (to me) is that a neighboring family voted for JFK, when I’m certain most everyone else in town didn’t. That was one data point for me to ponder early on in my journey to awareness.

         Reply ↓
         1. neutrino23 September 16, 2025 at 8:20 pm

            I recall in Michigan I was in the 7th grade at a Catholic school and kids and teachers were crying when the news broke of JFK’s assassination. No one cheered.

            Reply ↓
            1. mrsyk September 16, 2025 at 10:18 pm

               Thank you both. I am glad to be reminded of that side of people,.

               Reply ↓
            2. old age gives you perspective September 17, 2025 at 2:32 am

               I was in Wisconsin in 7th grade at a Catholic school. There was shock — the first Catholic president! — but only one girl, Angie G., was crying. We were all on our knees next to our desks saying the rosary until arrangements were made for us to go home early.

               Reply ↓
      2. erstwhile September 16, 2025 at 3:45 pm

         I remember reading in Counterpunch some years ago an article written by someone who had attended high school in oklahoma. When it was announced to his class that president kennedy had been shot and murdered in dallas ,he recalled one student, a boy, yelling, They finally got that n-lover. Of course that was many years ago, Now that the ten commandments are to posted in every classroom in oklahoma, I’m certain that such coarse and vulgar language will never again be heard in its hallowed halls. American jesus will be watching, always watching, like a ring doorbell, always listening, and always taking names.

         Reply ↓
         1. mrsyk September 16, 2025 at 4:17 pm

            Musical Interlude

            Which Jesus
            Which Jesus
            Which Jesus do you know?
            Well, the Jesus that I know
            Goes to Willie Nelson shows
            Yellin’ “Whiskey River” at the top of his lungs.

            Kevn Kinney
            Drivin’ N Cryin’

            Reply ↓
7. Octopodia September 16, 2025 at 7:46 am

   Chinese DIY enthusiasts built “robotic beasts” that look straight out of a sci-fi movie.

   Evolution converges on crabs.

   Reply ↓
   1. The Rev Kev September 16, 2025 at 8:11 am

      They remind me of the Replicators from Stargate SG1-

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z45Tpp9DBq4 (2:21 mins)

      Reply ↓
      1. Mass Driver September 17, 2025 at 6:24 am

         Nah, this has distinct East Asian flavour. You need to add more MSG.
         Ghost in the Shell (1995)
         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvC4chsgx0c&t=100s

         Reply ↓
   2. t September 16, 2025 at 9:49 am

      Ans false crabs!

      Reply ↓
   3. caucus99percenter September 16, 2025 at 11:00 am

      Thanks for the reference to the phenomenon known as “carcinization”:

      https://academic.oup.com/biolinnean/article-abstract/121/1/200/3089703

      Reply ↓
      1. alrhundi September 16, 2025 at 4:38 pm

         Hilarious. I read about this a bit ago but it’s so humourously relevant.

         Reply ↓
   4. Tom B. September 16, 2025 at 6:35 pm

      Cool if true, but I don’t really see how those two tiny fans could lift what must be a significant weight of motors, batteries, servos, chassis etc. Steering and stability with only two rotors must be an interesting problem.

      Reply ↓
      1. Mass Driver September 17, 2025 at 6:27 am

         This was discussed earlier here. It’s a toy. People take too seriously things they see on the Internets. Some probably still expect to get flying cars, and a trip to Mars. :)

         Steering and stability with only two rotors must be an interesting problem.

         Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey safety record can confirm. :)

         Reply ↓
8. Tom67 September 16, 2025 at 8:07 am

   There is a baseline. Bernie Sanders has put it like nobody else: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgHYAx7un00&t=18s I wish everybody would take it to heart.

   Reply ↓
   1. lyman alpha blob September 16, 2025 at 11:24 am

      Hmmmm. In listing the attempted political assassinations, he notably forgot one. Or two.

      Reply ↓
   2. Lee September 16, 2025 at 12:11 pm

      If I may be so bold as to pick a nit or two: our elections are not free, they cost a whole lot; nor are they fair given the control of ballot access by the two wings of the duopoly; our country’s past and present is replete with political violence to serve the interests of U.S. elites at home and abroad, including assassinations, bloody coups, and unjust wars. As sad and disconcerting as it may me, what goes around comes around.

      I do wholeheartedly agree that political assassination in current context is both futile and dangerously counter productive. If you are going to go kinetic, you best have numbers, be well organized, enjoy some considerable amount of support from the general public based on a well thought out program for the future, and have at least a fifty-fifty chance of prevailing. Since none of these necessary elements appear to exist at the moment, acts such as the Kirk assassination are not only morally questionable in the extreme, but politically suicidal as well.

      Reply ↓
   3. chuck roast September 16, 2025 at 4:23 pm

      If our national legislators strip billions in dollars in healthcare funding from Medicare and Medicaid resulting in the early death of millions of Americans is that political violence?

      Reply ↓
9. JohnA September 16, 2025 at 8:08 am

   The Britsh govenment has now stated that the RAF reconnaissance flights over Gaza were purely to seek out hostages and not indications of genocide or ethnic cleansing.
   Another sign Starmer et al are equally guilty of genocide.

   Reply ↓
   1. The Rev Kev September 16, 2025 at 8:42 am

      (in a suspicious voice) If those hostage are being kept in tunnels and buildings, then how is a plane flying overhead suppose to see them? (raises eyebrow)

      Reply ↓
      1. JohnA September 16, 2025 at 9:30 am

         That did cross my mind. Plus Starmer is sending fighter planes to protect Poland. Wonder what is left to keep Blighty safe and secure
         .

         Reply ↓
         1. The Rev Kev September 16, 2025 at 9:34 am

            Starm Troopers? Just don’t call them muppets. :)

            Reply ↓
            1. vao September 16, 2025 at 9:37 am

               All right, for the people not knowledgeable with the fine points of British colloquialisms: what is the deal with “muppet”?

               Reply ↓
               1. The Rev Kev September 16, 2025 at 9:55 am

                  Remember Jim Henson’s muppets? A muppet is a person that acts like an idiot-

                  https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/muppet#:~:text=muppet-,noun,re%20ruining%20it%2C%20you%20muppet!

                  You look at a gathering of EU leaders and you say to yourself, what a bunch of muppets. An example-

                  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6StJPN1bA18 (54 secs)

                  Reply ↓
                  1. vao September 16, 2025 at 10:26 am

                     Yes, but the characters in the muppet show (ah! the Swedish cook, miss Piggy, Kermit the frog…) were fun. On the other hand, those politicians, their accomplices, and their principals…

                     Did anybody in the UK ever got into legal trouble for calling another person a muppet? With all those harsh British laws against slander, libel, and defamation of character, you never know.

                     Reply ↓
                     1. The Rev Kev September 16, 2025 at 10:38 am

                        Why yes. Somebody did get arrested for calling another person a muppet about three years ago-

                        https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/youtube-tiktok-b2823353.html

                        Reply ↓
                        1. vao September 16, 2025 at 11:05 am

                           Ouch!

                           What about calling somebody a zany marionette instead?

                           Reply ↓
10. Nicholas September 16, 2025 at 8:11 am

    From Adam Levitin, link above:

    Either Pulte was wildly reckless by making the referral without pulling the loan file, including the application materials, or he proceeded despite having the loan file, which suggests that he acted maliciously. Regardless of whether Pulte acted recklessly or maliciously, his actions here are more than cause for his removal.

    I wonder if the commenters who wanted Lisa Cook to resign or cut a check to treasury for her alleged fraud will similarly pursue Pulte for his groundless attack on her in the first place?

    Reply ↓
    1. Anon September 16, 2025 at 12:32 pm

       The standards should apply to him as well.
       He should resign from his position as his immediate family who owned a home building business committed mortgage fraud.
       Or, he should show high moral and professional character and ask the prosecutors to bring a case and charge his father with mortgage fraud.

       Not holding my breath that either will come to pass.

       Reply ↓
11. eg September 16, 2025 at 8:14 am

    “Utah governor says the motive in Kirk shooting is not yet certain but the suspect was on the left”

    What, exactly, is there about the young man’s life, family, community or education that is even remotely or tangentially associated with “the left”?

    Just more flooding the zone, I guess …

    Reply ↓
    1. vao September 16, 2025 at 8:40 am

       Is he anarcho-syndicalist, neozapatist, naxalite, marxist-leninist, maoist, trotskyist, castroist, socialist-revolutionary, anarchist-Bakunin, anarchist-Kropotkin, international-situationist…?

       Inquiring minds want to know.

       Reply ↓
       1. The Rev Kev September 16, 2025 at 8:45 am

          Wait a moment, I’ll go get my ideological bingo card.

          Reply ↓
       2. anahuna September 16, 2025 at 9:50 am

          Chapeau!

          Since we have suddenly been tasked with learning the difference between goypers and followers of Kirk, not to mention challenged by esoteric interpretations of gamer terms, it seems only fair that Cox should get busy with your list.

          Reply ↓
          1. chuck roast September 16, 2025 at 4:28 pm

             …only fair to accelerate that task.

             Reply ↓
       3. Laughingsong September 16, 2025 at 1:32 pm

          He’s “Sinister” 😬

          Reply ↓
          1. Don September 16, 2025 at 6:34 pm

             As in “sinister, dexter, sinister, dexter, sinister dexter…”?

             Reply ↓
       4. Retired Carpenter September 16, 2025 at 6:37 pm

          All this reminds me of the 1950 campaign speech where George Smathers allegedly outed Claude Pepper as “a known extrovert,” his sister as a “thespian,” and his brother as a “practicing homo sapien.” He also accused Pepper of practicing “nepotism” with his sister-in-law and of “matriculating” with young women in college. Worst of all, Pepper had “practiced celibacy” before marriage.

          Strange world.

          Reply ↓
          1. hk September 16, 2025 at 11:34 pm

             I thought that was the otherbway around, Pepper describing Smathers as such.

             Reply ↓
    2. IM Doc September 16, 2025 at 9:06 am

       I am just putting this out there. I am in an email group with my old Classical History/Language classmates from decades ago. Many of the professors, though now some approaching 90, are in the group.

       One of those elderly professors wrote a small email in the group the other day. He is most assuredly of the Left – but the way it is classically understood – the working man, civil rights, protection from oligarchs, standard issue societal fruits like education and medicine for all, etc.

       He wrote this to us all about the modern Left

       “The Left has been completely shut out of the Democratic Party and taken over by the corporatists and those who practice modern Gnosticism. Who are the modern Gnostics? They can be identified very easily just listening to them. They say I am on a journey, because of my existence I have special traits that only I and others like me appreciate. We have a very carefully crafted but fluid purity test. We are on a mission to bend the entire society to our will. If you pass the purity test, you can join the special group. But rapid and thorough punishment will happen if you pass the test but fail to keep up with the whims that change in the purity test. If you cannot see how entitled we are because of our special traits, than that is all on you, and not only will we cancel you, you do not deserve to live. This is all about me and us. We could care less about you. This movement preyed on those of the Left who could see that yes indeed there were problems in the past that needed to be rectified. But the Left became sacrificial and did not place boundaries. The Gnostics have now completely taken over the House of the Left. But rest assured there is nothing “Left” about them. And they are allied with the worst group of all- the Corporatists. They could care less about workers, social issues or anything the traditional Left cares about. As has been true of Gnostics forever, it is all about our journey, our desires, etc. I lament the loss of the Left. But at this time in our history they are gone. The Gnostics, having taken over the mantle of the Left, as usual, are so focused on their own narcissist selves, they do not see the destruction coming even for them. They are completely oblivious to how out of touch they are even now. And as they subsumed the actual Left, they became the “Left” in the eyes of everyone else, and this is where we are today. When the Right is talking about “The Left” they are actually talking about the Gnostics – most certainly not the Left. I do not know how this will end. I will not be here. But it seems to me it cannot be good.”

       Yes ramblings from a 90 year old who has studied human behavior, history, theology, politics all his life. Again, just putting this out there. When these professors send things out like this, I tend to spend much time thinking and meditating about what they are saying.

       Reply ↓
       1. amfortas September 16, 2025 at 9:16 am

          yeah. the thing that set me off most in this whole clown rodeo was the entire right wing, from trump on down, immediately yelling about how the “Far left!”/”Radical Left!” is coming to get them, and must be destroyed.
          i should not be surprised, of course.
          This has been ongoing for my whole life

          Reply ↓
       2. Louis Fyne September 16, 2025 at 9:21 am

          those “ramblings” are 100% correct….but they don’t fit on a bumper sticker or ready for a 30-second Tiktok set to derivative rap and gyrating hips.

          Saying that I have “Secret Wisdom….trust me dudette/dude” is profoundly anti-Enlightenment, anti-scientific method, anti-democracy. But complements hubris, pride, and credentialism!

          Reply ↓
       3. Carolinian September 16, 2025 at 9:30 am

          Sorry but I think you are making too much of what the Democrats are or are not. Of course since we are now saddled with only two parties it’s a concern, but it’s the saddling that is the problem. One could point out that during the FDR period that you favor the Dems were also the party of Jim Crow and Roosevelt refused to challenge that or support an anti-lynching bill. Long ago they were of course the party of slavery.

          Roosevelt’s greatness was his embrace of populism and the Dems turned their back on that long before the current century. Left and Right mean little in a class war that is really all about winners and losers. History shows that the winners of whatever stripe are always more than willing to embrace “two legs good, four legs bad.” I’m not sure philosophy–at least in America–has much to do with it.

          Reply ↓
          1. IM Doc September 16, 2025 at 12:38 pm

             I would add the following…….

             I guess I would start by stating that with the discussion that ensued from that email, one of the other things that came out is that Gnostics often had a boogeyman that was the supreme enemy. Sound familiar?

             They also had a moral relativism that often placed what the rest of the culture deemed as villians as their heroes – that these villains were just misunderstood, etc. That they were actually the good guys because of the bad things they did and what their bad actions caused to come to pass. The recently discovered Gospel of Judas is a very good example of this.

             As a loyal Dem for decades, I was very in tune with dailykos and the left-o-sphere online. I would say that if that group was asked who is the most important spokesperson on the Left today – the answer would probably be Rachel Maddow.

             I listened to Maddow for years. Up until the day she stated emphatically on her show that the COVID vaccines gave 100% protection against infection. I knew at the time that was a lie, and I also knew it would kill people. Sure enough in the ensuing weeks, one person stated in the ER as they were very ill from COVID after being vaccinated – “But Rachel told me I would be OK”. This stance actually allowed people to think in the midst of the worst of the pandemic that they were bulletproof and could do anything they wanted risk-free. I quit watching her at that moment.

             Nevertheless, I think we can all agree on basic core tenets of “The Left” – civil rights, protection for workers from the oligarchy, rights for workers, and the sharing of the fruits for all for things like education and healthcare. There are certainly more.

             I watched this most prominent spokesperson of the Left for years. I do not really recall a single time that she said a word about unions, workers, etc. She did talk about the economy – but this was only in the context of it looking really bad for Trump. I have never heard her really support civil rights – but I repeatedly heard her and her guests talking about how important cancel culture was for the health of the democracy. She was also one of the big proponents of spiting the unvaccinated. I never really heard her talk about education, but I heard her talk about health care a lot —- but never really that we should all have it appropriately – but twisting herself into pretzels to support Obamacare and the really bad situation that has become.

             What I did hear her spending almost all of her time about was one story after the other – RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA – and all kinds of attention spent on taking down the bogeyman Trump. She spent all kinds of time talking about DEI and CRT issues. The more you listened and the more you read dailykos and others – the more your brain suffered from cognitive dissonance. She lead the charge into all these topics – almost none of which had a thing to do with the priorities of the Left that I know.

             That is what I really thought about when I read my professor’s email. He is exactly correct. What is called the modern Left really has no regard for what the Left has historically been. It really is a form of Gnosticism. It is certainly not the same as the Gnosticism of old – but the parallels are certainly there.

             Reply ↓
             1. skippy September 16, 2025 at 4:15 pm

                Since neoliberalism became dominate in the mid 70s its the framework that both legacy political operate with in IM Doc. This Gnosticism you refer to is just – atomistic individualism – too me, as its a cornerstone of neoliberalism. Its embedded in Orthodox/Austrian economics e.g. an individuals potential in seeking success/profit. Overrides all other social considerations i.e. in a market place – see TINA.

                In this construct Flexians[tm] are akin to the old homo economicus term with a side of Übermensch. People willing too say and do just about anything to personally get ahead in the market place. All negative social outcomes are externalized, see corporations as natural born humans. Both sides do it in pandering to their base of environmentally gifted consumers. Most of it is just theater, see how many so called lefties by the right end up with perches at WEF et al think tanks post public service.

                Sorta like HR being set up so the upper management/C-suite did not have to have contact with the unwashed labour, free range/mobile theory of labour thingy with dogbox RE investment[tm] is the only game in town.

                It is interesting to note that old labour was based on family formation e.g. rights to a share of productivity which facilitated family formation. Now both parties have abandoned that notion with hyper extractive economic policies – PPP/GDP distribution. All back filled with immigration based on a PR/Marketing dream now going splat. So much for Meritocracy [coined as sarcasm] and bootstrapping ….

                Anywho …. sorry for the quick comment as I need to trot off to sort a heritage listed Queenslander home, nicking it up for clients that just sold it …

                P.S. everything you said was unpacked on NC back around the GFC.

                Reply ↓
                1. skippy September 17, 2025 at 12:09 am

                   BTW IM Doc, on the Christian matter its grab bag spanning natural history going back the original foundation myths. Lots of synergies abound pre and during the 7 councils of Nicea with Greek et al philosophies. Not to mention the politicization of via Christendom for economic/multi ethnic regions.

                   Hudson is quite good on the cough …. reinterpretations ….

                   PS no hits searching Puritan Thomas Goodwin’s concise summary of the Bible on goggle – had to use another – dumbing down proceeds apace …

                   Other than that I have found the Puritan Thomas Goodwin’s concise summary of the Bible to be more historically un-fiddled with for political reasons. The New American Bible – groan …

                   Reply ↓
             2. Tom67 September 16, 2025 at 4:42 pm

                Dear IM Doc Wholeheartedly agree. It pains me tremendously how the great leftist heritage has been taken over by shysters and PR professionals. Still one needs to battle on.

                Reply ↓
             3. Pat September 16, 2025 at 5:37 pm

                I stopped watching Maddow when she was MSNBC’s face during the symbolic troop withdrawal from Iraq. She happily and joyously participated in that farce. I had become wary of her during the whole ACA formation, and this just confirmed she was a tool.
                And at least up to that point any mention of union or labor rights were throwaways in a larger discussion that still didn’t cover the decimation of middle class labor. Any real pro worker information or discussion was left to Ed Schultz. That only lasted until unions started making headway. Then he was gone from the network. (His integrity came under fire.)
                The clue that MSNBC was more mainstream propaganda rather than old school left advocacy should have been the killing of Donahue’s show during the false push to invade Iraq, but I was very good at denial. In other words this is just one example but the destruction of the left was decades in the making, probably all my adult life. It may have sped up following citizens united, but truth be told for every anti war movement and Civil Rights Act the pendulum swung back and wiped out supports for these kind of things. It is easier to see a quarter of a century on, but the left was bleeding from numerous small cuts even before CU and the Patriot Act destruction of civil rights.

                Reply ↓
                1. OIFVet September 16, 2025 at 5:53 pm

                   Ed Schultz, a Red State economic progressive. The signs were there that Red States can be won on economically progressive politics for the working people. Instead, the Dems went all in on Hillary, suburban moms, Russiagate and ID Pols.

                   And now here we are.

                   Reply ↓
             4. upstater September 16, 2025 at 7:45 pm

                Sorry, doc that it took until 2021 for you to become disillusioned with corporate media. How could it be just the vaccines? What took so long? I gave up on NPR/PBS in 2003 with the Iraq war cheerleading. How could anybody construe these outlets and mindset as “left”? They have been rubber stamps to corporate interests for 50+ years. But casting your lot with Trumpism and the Republicans is mystifying. The uniparty is a roach hotel.

                Reply ↓
                1. IM Doc September 16, 2025 at 7:57 pm

                   Who said I am casting my lot with Trumpism? Lord have mercy –
                   What an awesome example of TDS – and purity testing – you don’t agree with everything we say than you are an evil Trumper.
                   My oh my oh my.

                   I voted for Trump – because my side has become such a disaster that there was no hope on its current course. The disaster produced by the abandonment of the Left and the current Democratic Party are now visible for all to see. My hope was that some time in the wilderness would get their attention. That hope has been completely dashed by their current behavior and they obviously just do not get it.

                   But that is far away from being a Trumper. He just does not live in my head.

                   Reply ↓
             5. jobs September 16, 2025 at 11:34 pm

                Speaking of Russia and Maddow, since this is Links:

                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPpyn3QwSj0 (1m9s)

                Reply ↓
       4. Camelotkidd September 16, 2025 at 10:41 am

          Yes, the Democrats have embraced Identity Politics as a way in which to pretend to be Left while actually as the other billionaire party. Instead of concrete material benefits it’s rainbow flags, Black Lives Matter and concern with pronouns.

          Reply ↓
       5. lyman alpha blob September 16, 2025 at 12:10 pm

          Your friends “Gnostics” allied with corporatists has been called “HR liberalism”. It’s a term I quite like, for people who are just as “liberal” as their HR departments allow them to be.

          Reply ↓
          1. Glenda September 16, 2025 at 2:21 pm

             Equating Gnosticism with Identity Politics, does classical Gnosticism a disservice as it was more of a personal practice like meditation. I don’t know that it ever became political, more like a religious practice.

             Reply ↓
             1. lyman alpha blob September 16, 2025 at 2:33 pm

                Thanks for clarifying, and I was referring to IM Doc’s friend’s modern “Gnosticism”, not the classical version.

                Reply ↓
             2. Jonathan Holland Becnel September 16, 2025 at 6:01 pm

                This reminds me of the mental ritual of “taking the blackpill 💊.”

                Reply ↓
       6. jhallc September 16, 2025 at 1:33 pm

          I’ve been telling my Liberal friends for a long time that “There is no Left….left”
          That might make a good bumper sticker.

          Reply ↓
       7. begob September 16, 2025 at 1:53 pm

          Chimes with Harold Bloom’s case that the official religion of the USA is gnosticism.

          Reply ↓
          1. Louis Fyne September 16, 2025 at 2:26 pm

             ….but if you give me $39.99 (in 4 easy installments), let me send you a kit that will unlock this knowledge for you! Hurry! quantities are limited. seriously.

             Reply ↓
    3. Kurtismayfield September 16, 2025 at 11:10 am

       They use leftist for anything that they do not agree with. That is the beauty of the reactionary mindset. Anything that justifies your goal is acceptable.

       Reply ↓
       1. nippersdad September 16, 2025 at 2:50 pm

          Exactly. I would add “anti-semitism” to that as the modern equivalent of a verbal dumpster for all things they don’t like. It appears that name calling is all they have left.

          Reply ↓
       2. Jason Boxman September 16, 2025 at 4:15 pm

          Democrats love it as well; People really believe Pelosi is of the “radical left” or some such nonsense, when she herself said that Democrats are capitalists and that’s just how it is.

          Reply ↓
    4. Bugs September 16, 2025 at 2:30 pm

       Ken Klippenstein just posted a story including an interview with one of the alleged shooter’s friends and clips from Discord chats. It doesn’t look either lib, right or left. It looks sad.

       https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/exclusive-leaked-messages-from-charlie

       Some wag posted on twitter that Klippenstein works with former CIA to edit his pieces. I obviously have no idea if that’s true and it seems really odd to say that.

       Reply ↓
       1. IM Doc September 16, 2025 at 5:42 pm

          Sad is correct.
          I have had quite the emotional few days with my family untangling my younger family member’s inappropriate behavior and firing.

          Unbelievably, I have been thinking a lot about Peter Pan. Not the idiotic Disney version. The real Peter Pan by JS Barrie from Victorian England.

          Young boys orphaned, taken away in isolation, then joining roving groups, dressing up and acting as both little girls/women and animals. Playing games all day. Being in a situation where older men are filling your minds full of not-so-good things and planning all kinds of things for you to do that will be hurtful for you. Having many of the young men disappeared. Never growing up.

          It is all coming home – in my family and the family of this young man. Most of these guys are not literally orphaned – but they may as well be – orphaned by having a single mom or both parents working themselves to death with 3 jobs, or a set of parents who orphan them by not wanting to mess with them and sit them in front of a computer – or orphaned because their social skills are messed up with autism – or self-orphaning – realizing the world is not in their favor and self-isolating.

          You are right, it is all so sad. Believe it or not, our family has been praying for this Robinson guy since this started. He is just a much a victim of this chaos as everyone else.

          Reply ↓
          1. JCC September 16, 2025 at 11:38 pm

             I’ve seen the same here at work on the local Navy Base. Young guys, IT/tech jobs… show up late for work most mornings because they stayed up all night playing online shoot-em-up games.

             No life, always on the defense at work, definitely sad.

             By the way, I agreed with your earlier comments on Drs and professionalism at work. My father was a surgeon, definitely conservative, a dyed-in-the-wool Nixon voter. We iften had discussions about professional ethics for physicians and although we didn’t agree on much at the dinner table (1960’s) he did a fine job of presenting good, solid, arguments as to why politics were totally inappropriate in his work environment.

             Plumbers may make more than doctors (he always said, jokingly, that doctors were “glorified plumbers” except plumbers made more money :) but the relationship between a doctor and patient is far more personal and far more important and never has anything, ever, to do with politics.

             Reply ↓
       2. pjay September 16, 2025 at 5:53 pm

          Klippestein works with William Arkin. Arkin is a noted journalist with very good contracts in the military and intelligence communities. Definitely not a radical, but he’s done some good stuff. He was one of the very few mainstream journalists who used his contacts, especially in the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) to challenge the mainstream narrative on Ukraine in Newsweek. He wrote an informative book with Dana Priest, Top Secret America, about our increasingly massive military-intelligence-industrial complex.

          Like most journalists, even good ones, who depend on “insider” contacts, their work is only as good as their sources, including whatever biases or agendas these sources might have. But within these limits of mainstream work I think they are usually pretty good.

          Reply ↓
          1. pjay September 16, 2025 at 6:11 pm

             The information in this piece strikes me as likely accurate, yet it just raises more questions about his motives and planning. The picture Klippenstein paints is sad, but not *that* sad. And there is very little hint of political motivation, or the type of nihilistic “blackpill” orientation that has been posited by some.

             I’m *really* interested in what this “extremely cooperative” roommate has to say. Most individuals who commit acts like this have provided hints of such potential behavior along the way. That includes the several recent shooters of this type. I don’t see that here, yet.

             Reply ↓
       3. Ben Panga September 16, 2025 at 6:17 pm

          Klippenstein has previously cited his contacts from Wheaton within the gov-mil (sorry no link).

          There was a lot of discussion of this in the UFO-curious twitter when Klippenstein wrote a conveniently-timed hit-piece on the main “UFO whistleblower” [sic] David Grusch.

          UFO Whistleblower Kept Security Clearance After Psychiatric Detention (Intercept)

          My take on all that is that Grusch was a tool of the Thielite wing of the mil-gov and that therefore Klippenstein’s sources were from the older opposed faction.

          Reply ↓
12. Hugh Fredericks September 16, 2025 at 8:23 am

    Reddit has absolutely become a cesspool of garbage information and one that invariably moves in specific political and ideological directions. It has always been avowedly non-scientific when it comes to trans issues and in the ‘world news’ subreddit, regardless of the number of daily victims in Gaza, it never fails to feature 7 to 8 headlines about atrocities in Ukraine for every one in Israel. Reddit’s just another sewer of pro-Israel American liberalism posing as a news site.

    As Mint Press noted a few years ago, that may be due to their appointment of foreign policy hawk Jessica Ashooh to the position of Director of Policy in 2017.
    In that role, she oversees all government relations and public policy for the company, in addition to managing content, product and advertising. Ashooh’s bona fides includes being a foreign policy wonk at NATO’s think tank, the Atlantic Council, but there’s much more.

    Reply ↓
    1. ThirtyOne September 16, 2025 at 12:26 pm

       Fits right in with the ‘Colonization of the Mind — The Means, Roots, and Global Perils of U.S. Cognitive Warfare’ article linked above.

       Reply ↓
    2. AG September 16, 2025 at 1:01 pm

       Actually all these media appointments – see also CBS as of late – are just incredible.
       How dare they even attempt to make a single comment on independent reporting and all the other garbagery.
       Taibbi and Kirn should dedicate a single 4 hour show to name all the players and their outlets and who pays whom… eventually not a sheet of paper will fit between the NYT and such outlets as Reddit.

       Reply ↓
    3. alrhundi September 16, 2025 at 4:49 pm

       I’m a long time Reddit user at this point and somewhere around the 2016 election it became heavily astroturfed and went downhill hard since. Especially with the advent of AI it’s gotten worse. Smaller niche subreddits can be good but anything larger or political is terrible. Until recently anything pro-palestine was heavily downvoted. The anti-russian sentiment can be found everywhere. If you try to rationalize any Russian or Chinese actions it’s met with massive resistance. One of the worst (and imo problematic) aspects is how astroturfed country-specific subreddits are. The Canada subreddit has a lot of American propaganda pushing their culture war and such, and if you go to European or middle eastern country subreddits it’s the same.

       Reply ↓
       1. Daniil Adamov September 17, 2025 at 1:32 am

          Are you sure it’s astroturfing and not natural mobbing behaviour? Loud sufficiently-large minorities with a lot of time on their hands harrassing most others into conformity or silence seems to be a natural product of the Internet that does not require any additional manipulation. Let it run for long enough and what you describe is what we will end up with, I think.

          Reply ↓
          1. alrhundi September 17, 2025 at 1:26 pm

             Good point, the natural mobbing is a big factor. As far as I understand the astroturfing can be a seeding of sorts that allows the natural mob to form as intended

             Reply ↓
    4. Jonathan Holland Becnel September 16, 2025 at 6:12 pm

       Obligatory Shoutout to Reddit.com/r/Stupidpol

       The only place on Reddit that challenges the Neoliberal Narrative of Identity Politics.

       Reply ↓
13. Carla September 16, 2025 at 8:47 am

    “This intertwined genetic heritage means that sweetpotato can be tentatively classified as a “segmental allopolyploid” — essentially a hybrid that arose from different species but behaves genetically as if it came from a single one. This genomic merging and recombination gives sweetpotato its remarkable adaptability and disease resistance, traits crucial for subsistence farmers worldwide.”

    Miraculous!

    Now let’s destroy it:

    “Equipped with a clearer understanding of sweetpotato’s complex genetics, breeders can now more efficiently identify genes responsible for key traits like yield, nutritional content, and resistance to drought and disease. This precision could accelerate the development of improved varieties.”

    Thus removing its natural adaptability and disease resistance… the planet will be so much better off when we humans have finally annihilated each other entirely. Nature can hardly wait.

    Reply ↓
    1. Judith September 16, 2025 at 9:04 am

       Yes, my thoughts as well.

       Reply ↓
14. AG September 16, 2025 at 8:52 am

    re: actor Robert Redford dies at 89

    Robert Redford, Golden Boy of Hollywood, Dies at 89
    The Oscar winner and Sundance founder died Sept. 16 at his home in Utah.
    https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/robert-redford-dead-oscar-winner-sundance-founder-was-89-1236372445/

    Reply ↓
    1. The Rev Kev September 16, 2025 at 10:33 am

       Damn, man. I was just watching some of his clips from the film “The Natural” earlier. He really was a good, professional actor and did so many excellent films-

       https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Redford

       RIP.

       Reply ↓
       1. CitizenGuy September 16, 2025 at 1:23 pm

          It feels like “Sneakers” was always on in our house when I was a teenager. I loved that movie. Sydney Poitier, Dan Akroyd, Robert Redford, David Strathairn, and Benjamin Kingsley. What a cast!

          I look forward to when it makes the Sunday movie thread!

          Reply ↓
          1. Jonathan Holland Becnel September 16, 2025 at 6:14 pm

             Loved Sneakers & The Natural!

             Jeremiah Johnson is the GOAT 🐐

             🪦

             Reply ↓
          2. griffen September 17, 2025 at 7:07 am

             That was an entertaining film, surprisingly good and an excellent cast. Recently had an opportunity to stream one of his later films.

             A Walk in the Woods, worth the few hours to watch that one.

             Reply ↓
    2. Wukchumni September 16, 2025 at 6:13 pm

       Redford was one of my favorites. Downhill Racer was and remains, about the only serious ski movie, not that there is anything wrong with Hot Dog…The Movie.

       He really hit his stride with Paul Newman and those great films they performed in together.

       R.I.P.

       Reply ↓
15. Socal Rhino September 16, 2025 at 8:55 am

    Following on his actions to take control of the Fed, Trump is now calling for public firms to report earnings every six months versus today’s quarterly reporting. As noted on CNBC this morning, Warren Buffet and Jamie Diamond thought CEOs were too focused on short term results, but they proposed cessation of quarterly earnings estimates, not less frequent reporting of GAAP results.

    Seems like a bad idea when global organizations are already attempting to find ways to work around the US financial system. What next, follow through on talk of export tariffs on foreign investments in US markets? Exchange foreign holdings of Treasury bonds with meme coins?

    Reply ↓
    1. divadab September 16, 2025 at 10:48 am

       Corporate accountant here – I survived years and years of scrambling to produce quarterly GAAP results for public disclosure, sort of a series of standing waves of focused effort in what is far too much a political process. Perhaps mandating semi-annual results disclosures would produce better quality reporting and focus corporate leadership on longer-term factors. But I doubt it. More likely it would allow companies to defer disclosure of poor results and actually dilute the quality of reporting.

       I agree that earnings “estimates” take far too much attention which should be focused on actual GAAP reporting.

       Reply ↓
       1. Revenant September 16, 2025 at 6:30 pm

          UK public companies report six monthly. It didn’t seem to hurt them until the 1999’s, when investment in overseas companies was encouraged (ironically at the same time as UK foreign investment income went negative through relying on foreign direct investment and paying dividends out to abroad).

          Reply ↓
16. Ignacio September 16, 2025 at 9:19 am

    NATO States Have Failed Phillips P. OBrien (resilc)

    This was linked as a show on how crazed is the punditry in the CW, is, i guess. “The NATO cannot talk an attack an attack”. An attack with toy drones as the one he shows in the picture? No explosives, and parts fixed with tape, landing in the fields? Sending F35s to fight against toys was probably seen as an excess for “unprepared” NATO countries. This was a clown world thing and yes, NATO was unprepared to play with toys.

    This O’Brien failed to note that the hundreds above Ukraine are explosive and do real damage where they are intended to do damage.

    Reply ↓
    1. vao September 16, 2025 at 9:35 am

       Sending F35s to fight against toys was probably seen as an excess for “unprepared” NATO countries.

       They have form. In 2023, the USA sent an F-22 to down a Chinese weather balloon hysterically believed to be some kind of devious aerostatic spying contraption.

       One year and a half and they have not yet figured out how to down cheap, slow, unarmed aircraft in any other way than by scramming their most expensive stealthy jets.

       Reply ↓
       1. Ignacio September 16, 2025 at 9:50 am

          Yeah but imagine if the F35 shots a missile which fails to hit the toy and instead damages a home killing family members. (Murphy’s law applies). This was probably not the case with the balloon.

          In any case the aircraft will probably need a month of expensive maintenance if it is to be used again.

          Reply ↓
          1. ilsm September 16, 2025 at 11:36 am

             F-35…. It has to be used, otherwise $2 trillion buck cash stream might be unpopular.

             Like sending knights out to fight the killer rabbit.

             Reply ↓
             1. Glen September 16, 2025 at 11:56 pm

                Yes, it’s what we have, so it will get used, but how many daily sorties responding to cheap drones would it take before these were all down waiting for parts?

                It’s one thing for the MIC to design a profit machine, it’s something else entirely for the DOD to keep accepting this kind of performance.

                Reply ↓
    2. paul September 16, 2025 at 3:09 pm

       The Scottish academy is absolutely awash with deadbeats like him stealing a (very comfortable) living in ‘defense studies’.

       Reply ↓
17. Bugs September 16, 2025 at 9:24 am

    A post from this little blog popped up in my RSS reader this morning, and I think it’s pretty much on the money. I’ve been asked by close relations to mourn(!) or at least offer condolences for this Kirk kid’s passing, and I refuse to. Now they’re saying that they’re out for revenge on anyone who doesn’t support their cause, that I think is full-blown fascism.

    “do not retcon his legacy” https://blog.avas.space/legacy-news/

    If Rush Limbaugh had left this world in similar fashion, at the height of his popularity. I’d have felt the same way. After finally learning more about Kirk this past week, I think he’s even worse than Rush was, because of his youth, connections, and well thought-out fascist organizational tactics. Those red baseball caps are more menacing than we might want to admit. It’s virtuous to speak out against these actors and stop their rise to power. Speak out.

    Reply ↓
    1. herman_sampson September 16, 2025 at 10:40 am

       I mourn Aaron Bushnell’s sacrifice. Some entitled loudmouth, not so much.

       Reply ↓
    2. Wukchumni September 16, 2025 at 10:48 am

       Had dinner last night with heavy duty Book of Revelations evangs in our mountain community last night, and I only wanted to hear what they had to say, so I added precious little content to their hatefest for liberals who were surely the reason Charlie Kirk wasn’t with us anymore.

       Now keep in mind in their heart of hearts, they’ll end up with the big cheese for a thousand years, while liberals and their kin are enjoying a not so tasty shit sandwich down on this good orb for a similar amount of time, it’s as if they want retribution now, not later.

       Reply ↓
    3. Carolinian September 16, 2025 at 12:48 pm

       See the Grayzone article which says the Israeli image organization played a big role in his rise because Netanyahu is disturbed by the lack of youth support for Israel. Blumenthal thinks Kirk was talented and had a political future but he was very well funded by wealthy Israel supporters.

       The nut of the story is that Gaza led Kirk to draw back from this early sponsorship and the vehemence of the response made him afraid.

       There’s no suggestion that this had anything to do with his death other than that he may have been reckless in his associates and his willingness to expose himself in public despite taking positions on today’s hothouse social issue climate. That may be a sad comment on America but it’s hardly new given what went on in the 1960s. And events like this inspire copycats. The killing seems very similar to the attempt on Trump last year.

       Reply ↓
       1. Ben Panga September 17, 2025 at 12:39 am

          > >The killing seems very similar to the attempt on Trump last year.

          Doesn’t it though….

          Reply ↓
18. The Rev Kev September 16, 2025 at 9:28 am

    “Japan sets record of nearly 100,000 people aged over 100′

    This is remarkable in another aspect. To achieve that milestone, those 100,000 people must have been born in 1925 or even earlier – about the time that Calvin Coolidge was President in the US. It would be one thing if they lived peaceful lives to encourage those long lives. They did not. As small children they went through the Great Depression and as teenagers went through WW2 when the Japanese islands got absolutely hammered. After the war as young adults would have helped in the rebuilding of Japan. Just the stress and terror of those years alone you would think knocked years off their lives but for these people apparently not. Now that is resilience.

    Reply ↓
    1. Pearl Rangefinder September 16, 2025 at 1:20 pm

       It is surprising how long lived some people can be even after periods in their lives that were very stressful, that you would think surely this has shaved years off their lives. I recall after seeing the film “Downfall” (about the last two weeks in Hitler’s bunker) how quite a few of the people who worked in Hitler’s Fuhrerbunker lived into their 80s and 90s. His telephone guy, Rochus Misch, lived to 96 (died 2013) – and apparently was even giving walking tours of the area around the Fuhrerbunker in Berlin into his 80s! Erna Flegel, a nurse, lived to 94 (died 2006). Otto Günsche was Hitler’s personal adjutant, lived to 86 (died 2003). Wilhelm Mohnke was one of Hitler’s last generals in the Battle of Berlin – lived to 90 (died 2001). There are others also that managed to make it into their 90s, even with a postwar ‘vacation’ in an NKVD prison.

       Reply ↓
       1. hk September 16, 2025 at 11:48 pm

          Minoru Genda lived to 99 (I think he died a day before his 100th birthday), after Pearl Harbor, Genda’s Flying Circus, Lockheed Scandal (he became JASDF chief of staff by then) and a long and loud speech (I’d call it a filibuster, but Im not sure about Japanese Parliamentary rules) advocating that Japan renounce article 9 and acquire nukes (he was a Japanese “senator” by then, a member of the Upper House of the Legislature.)

          Reply ↓
          1. Pearl Rangefinder September 17, 2025 at 2:44 pm

             Thanks for this, I wasn’t familiar with him.

             Minoru Genda

             In September 1961, while visiting London for five days as chief of staff of the Japan Air Self-Defense Force, he commented he had no regrets about the attack on Pearl Harbor except that “We should not have attacked just once–we should have attacked again and again.”

             Ha! At least the man was honest.

             This reminds me that “mid-20th-century test pilots” are another group that seemingly has extraordinarily long lives. At least for the ones that survive that job at any rate. British Eric ‘Winkle’ Brown (lived to 96), Chuck Yeager lived to an astounding 97. Polish-Canadian Janusz Żurakowski lived to 89. I’m sure there are plenty of others. It’s interesting how despite high-stress careers like this (and sometimes horrific injuries in crashes), it didn’t seem to dent their life expectancy much.

             Reply ↓
    2. nippersdad September 16, 2025 at 3:16 pm

       A question more than anything, and this will not be well put, but how does the authoritarian mindset affect such things? It has been said that liberals are far more likely to stress out over things than conservatives because of the authoritarian mindset that disallows the expectation of having to think about alternatives. Having a culture of just doing what you are told to do, of total acceptance of the situation one is living through, must have an effect upon one’s blood pressure, amongst other things.

       Reply ↓
    3. Wukchumni September 16, 2025 at 6:00 pm

       In 1963 Japan started out giving sterling silver sake bowls to those that reached 100, they gave out 316 that first year…

       By the early 2000’s, just too many centenarians and the government still gave them a sake bowl, but silver-plated now.

       Reply ↓
19. t September 16, 2025 at 10:02 am

    Just in case anyone needs to hear this in the year of our Lord 2025, AI image enhancers will make a person more attractive, unless specifically prompted for a Hobbit or old age or a bloated blue-face JD Vance head. Which you can also find online.

    Reply ↓
20. Ignacio September 16, 2025 at 10:12 am

    The sweetpotato’s DNA turned out stranger than anyone expected ScienceDaily (Kevin W)

    Nice! And good commentary of the scientific article. Not everything is lost these crazy days we are living in!

    Reply ↓
21. The Rev Kev September 16, 2025 at 10:18 am

    ‘Thomas Keith
    @iwasnevrhere_
    Major General Amir Baram, Director General of the Israeli War Ministry, admitted openly that Tel Aviv is preparing for “third and fourth rounds” against Iran and Yemen, and is so strained it has begun setting up a “Supreme Armament Council” just to accelerate procurement.’

    More and more they are resembling a Baltic State – but with nukes. They have no strategic depth, not much of an economy left, some of their best people have probably already left, their government talks like a death cult and in the end they may end up like Siberia. Everybody knows where it is but not many want to go there.

    Reply ↓
22. ACPAL September 16, 2025 at 10:29 am

    “Trump announces deadly US strike on another alleged Venezuelan drug boat”

    You can tell when a schoolyard bully is losing it. After failing to intimidate strong adversaries who won’t be bullied they peevishly pick on someone they know can’t fight back. Trump is the ultimate schoolyard bully.

    Reply ↓
23. Mikel September 16, 2025 at 10:41 am

    AI Is Killing the College Essay. Enter the “Video Essay” – Washington Monthly

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbZndWCq6Gs/
    Elle Woods’ Harvard Video Essay

    Reply ↓
    1. Acacia September 16, 2025 at 11:27 am

       Ironically, AI video tools can enhance digital stories, even though digital stories are themselves supposed to be a check on AI.

       And soon digital student applicants and their digital friends too.

       Duh.

       Reply ↓
24. Steve H. September 16, 2025 at 10:42 am

    Fantastic summary of the most effective negotiating techniques. [via Zenpundit]

    Reply ↓
25. Mikel September 16, 2025 at 10:53 am

    The Cybernetic Society’ makes an unconvincing case for human-AI utopia – Washington Post

    When I see the world “cybernetics”, Scientology also comes to mind.
    And so it’s no wonder that I get the creepy cult feeling whenever I hear some of the “AI optimist” tropes and spiel. It has the sound of some warmed-over Scientology with some tweaks here and there.

    Reply ↓
26. AG September 16, 2025 at 10:54 am

    re: JD Vancy hypocrisy
    
    Moon of Alabama

    My thought too when I heard Kirn last night on ATW and the excerpt by Vance sitting in the same chair as Kirk used to.

    Of course it would be necessary to actually expand and include the range of comments and threats made by the US administration against Cubans, Venezuelans, left US organizers, and against Arab and Iranian resistance in general. And in particular Hamas and Hezbollah…

    So, no, I never took Vance seriously and I never will.
    And his rhetoric and speeches and use of words is insufferable, as is his style of speech (actually is there anyone who can deliver a decent speech?).

    He probably mimics what his team thinks is average Americans´ expectation of him pretending empathy. But it lacks any serious literary quality one would expect from a former writer…

    On Free Speech Hypocrisy – by JD Vance
    https://www.moonofalabama.org/2025/09/on-free-speech-hypocrisy-by-jd-vance.html#comments

    February 2025:

    In Munich, Vance accuses European politicians of censoring free speech – Reuters

    U.S. Vice President JD Vance on Friday took a swipe at European governments for what he described as their censorship of free speech and their political opponents, …
    …
    Vance adopted a confrontational tone, accusing European politicians of what he said was a fear of their own people and warned them that the real threat against their democracy was not from Russia or China.

    “The threat I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor. What I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America,” Vance said.
    …
    .. he said Brussels had shut down social media over hateful content, and criticized Germany for what he described as raids against its own citizens for posting anti-feminist comments, Sweden for convicting a Christian activist, and United Kingdom for backsliding on religious rights.

    —

    September 2025:

    Vance calls for action against those celebrating Kirk’s assassination – AP via The Christian Index

    Vice President JD Vance on Monday joined those demanding consequences for those who have cheered Charlie Kirk’s assassination, calling on the public to turn in anyone who celebrate the assassination of his friend and political ally and encourage further violence.

    “When you see someone celebrating Charlie’s murder, call them out,” Vance urged listeners on the slain activist’s podcast Monday. “And hell, call their employer.”

    Vance’s call also included a vow to target some of the biggest funders of liberal causes, as conservatives stepped up their targeting of private individuals for their comments celebrating the killing and encouraging more violence.

    Republican-controlled states such as Florida, Oklahoma, and Texas have launched investigations of teachers accused of inappropriate statements after last week’s assassination. The U.S. military has invited members of the public to report those who “celebrate or mock” the killing and said some troops have already been removed for their comments.

    At the same time, the Trump administration has vowed to target what it contends is a vast liberal network that inspired the shooter.

    Reply ↓
27. divadab September 16, 2025 at 10:57 am

    Re: Old people falling

    One of my uncles, living in a retirement home, said that the most common story in retirement facilities was: 1) old person has a fall; 2) old person goes to hospital; 3) old person never comes back.

    Of course, the reason for a fall are varied, but the shock to the system of broken bone(s), combined with whatever condition caused the fall, is frequently deadly.

    Reply ↓
    1. Lee September 16, 2025 at 2:08 pm

       Also, age related waning immune system competence coupled with hospital acquired respiratory and other infections. Both my grandfather and mother were thus ushered out of this mortal plane after bone-breaking falls and hospitalization. My equilibrium went noticeably wonky at 75. It’s typically not a problem unless I turn my head quickly. Had to give up the motorcycle and the bike. I sorely miss my two-wheeled fun.

       Reply ↓
    2. alrhundi September 16, 2025 at 4:54 pm

       Maybe a decade ago my grandma fell and broke her hip then soon after had a fairly quick onset of dementia. The doctor said this is fairly common that an injury (where falls are most common for old people) can lead to (neurological) disease after.

       Reply ↓
28. The Rev Kev September 16, 2025 at 11:00 am

    “National park to remove photo of enslaved man’s scars”

    This is one of the worse aspects of the Trump regime. The want and need to rewrite history to suit an ideological viewpoint. There is no need to hide that photo of that scarred man’s back. Well unless you want to soften the image of the Old South and its institutions. People may have to quietly take to preserving historical truths and artifacts lest they be destroyed in this wave of rewriting history.

    Reply ↓
29. nap September 16, 2025 at 11:11 am

    The chosen people visit a bakery (presumably in the West Bank), as captured on CCTV. (1.22 minutes, no sound).

    https://nitter.poast.org/GozukaraFurkan/status/1967360193098035474#m

    Reply ↓
30. Mikel September 16, 2025 at 11:22 am

    Zelenskyy demands ‘clear position’ from Trump on ending Russia-Ukraine war – Anadolu Agency.

    It’s not mentioned anywhere in there that he suggested changing his country’s constitution about negotiating with Russia.

    Reply ↓
31. mrsyk September 16, 2025 at 11:47 am

    US Army reveals Typhon missile system in Japan, Defense News, yesterday.

    The land-based weapon, capable of firing the Standard Missile-6 and the Tomahawk cruise missiles that can hit targets on China’s eastern coasts, was delivered last month to the U.S. Marine Corps Base in Iwakuni, in southwestern Japan. Its exhibition in Japan follows its deployment in the Philippines last year, triggering criticisms from China and Russia.

    Poke, poke, poke….

    Reply ↓
32. Jason Boxman September 16, 2025 at 11:54 am

    lol

    Fani Willis Loses Bid to Continue Prosecuting Georgia Trump Case (NY Times via archive.ph)

    The 4-3 ruling means that the criminal case against President Trump, related to his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss, will not move forward anytime soon, if ever.

    Reply ↓
    1. Neutrino September 16, 2025 at 1:09 pm

       Will Fani Willis get a book deal, or a biopic?
       Or non-personing?

       Reply ↓
33. tegnost September 16, 2025 at 12:22 pm

    Is it me, or is this more socialism for amazon(zoox) google (waymo) and their ilk?

    https://m.kuow.org/stories/seattle-among-cities-looking-to-prevent-robotaxis-from-rolling-into-emergencies

    If they are self driving cars how can it be that they are unable to respond to emergency vehicles, something that a human driver would face consequences for ? Self driving requires awareness of surroundings. I got triggered by this…

    https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/09/14/2334214/tens-of-thousands-of-us-emergency-workers-trained-on-how-to-handle-a-robotaxi

    How society should incur costs to enable this new I don’t know what to call it other than grift so the inevitability of this bs can move forward. Actually, they say instead of having a snow plow on the front of the fire truck (my suggestion, what? Don’t want to be snowplowed while in a self driving “taxi”? Don’t get in one.) its better to pull them out of the way(mo) probably because pushing might damage the precious machine which would privatize at least some of the cost of dealing with their inability to navigate real world conditions.
    Whats next? How to talk to AI chatbot without upsetting it?

    Reply ↓
    1. tegnost September 16, 2025 at 12:33 pm

       I must add that seattle does have snowstorms occasionally and some really steep hills. Imagine being in a robotaxi that can’t conceptualize snow because its just map software with a car attached

       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GButmfkNGmg

       Don’t worry, you’ll be fine…

       Reply ↓
       1. ThirtyOne September 16, 2025 at 2:02 pm

          If you don’t like the Way Mo’s driving, stay off the sidewalk!

          Reply ↓
       2. lyman alpha blob September 16, 2025 at 4:18 pm

          Apparently one of the options to prevent robotaxis from rolling into emergencies is not to simply ban robotaxis – that would be way too easy and cost some techbro a squillion or two.

          Seattle used to have a small problem with snow removal in that they didn’t remove it at all on the rare occasions that a snowstorm came through. They used to just wait for it to melt. In the 90s an older guy named Charlie Chong ran for city council. He suggested that the city spend a little bit on snow plows since they didn’t have hardly any of them, and even said he knew where to get some used ones for not much money. Chong was not part of the developer class that generally ran the city, and he was practically laughed out of town. They had whole city blocks to redevelop and monorails to build (or not) and couldn’t be bothered with such trivial matters. He was also ridiculed when he later ran for mayor and didn’t do well at all. https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/19970123/2520302/charlie-chong-gets-snowed-by-city-hall Later when it snowed and shut down the whole city for a few days, people wished they’d listened to Charlie. I’m quite sure the revenue lost due to the city being immobile was far greater than what some used snowplows would have cost.

          I remember one storm where the snow stopped traffic completely – can’t remember if that was the storm that prompted Chong’s suggestion, or if it happened after. Anyway, late at night, friends and I appropriated some road signs to use as makeshift sleds and went barreling down Denny Hill – good times! In the morning, I remember seeing articulated busses jackknifed in the streets to the point they couldn’t move. They were there for a couple days until snow melted and they could be removed/fixed.

          Reply ↓
34. AG September 16, 2025 at 12:23 pm

    re: Germany antiwar

    BSW party has put online all speeches made this WE during the protest event, including Jeffrey Sachs´s and Roger Waters´s messages.

    126 min. video
    https://bsw-vg.de/alle-reden-der-friedenskundgebung-im-video-mit-wagenknecht-massiv-hallervorden-bausa-aminati-krone-schmalz/

    Reply ↓
35. Cat Burglar September 16, 2025 at 1:32 pm

    Bear techniques for breaking in to cars advanced back in the 1970s.

    In Yosemite in the early 1970s, you were instructed to leave your food in the car at night, and that worked for a couple years, but then the word went around that bears could identify coolers, so you had to cover them up so they couldn’t see them. Some time in the 80s they started to break windows; getting human foods was getting harder for them, so they pitched right in!

    In camp, or in the backcountry, you were once advised to toss a cord over a branch, haul it up out of reach, and tie it off to something. I should have known the writing was on the wall when somebody told me about being awakened by a thumping sound outside their tent: looking outside, he saw a mother with cubs, encouraging the kids to climb up a tree trunk and make a jump for the hanging food bag — the thump was the cubs hitting the ground. He watched as they finally succeeded. After a few years bears figured out you could just cut the the cord with a claw and the food would drop, and then came the age of the free hanging counterbalanced food bag, to be followed by the lexan bear cannister or kevlar food bag.

    That is the state of the arms race so far. A bear biologist friend told me that some years ago, when a new bear proof trash container was introduced into California national parks, the bears in the Southern Sierra parks solved the problem, and it took only a matter of months as biologists and rangers watched the knowledge pass northward to Yosemite.

    As my biologist friend said to me, “Problem Solvers.” He also said that he thought they are as smart as we are. In my encounters with Brown Bears in Alaska — which luckily have not involved surprising the bear — the first thing they do is sit back, to observe and think. What you can sense is their curiosity, their joy at finding a a stash of food, and what seems like a waggish sense of humor.

    Reply ↓
    1. Wukchumni September 16, 2025 at 5:37 pm

       I’ve been using the counter balance method of hanging my food in the backcountry for 40 years now, and have never had any edibles taken by Boo-Boo and friends.

       Its the fun part at the end of your day after walking, you have to find a dead branch on the slim side fn a pine tree about 20 feet up, and if you do it right both food bags will be about 9-10 feet above the ground. You’ll need a stick to push the bags up out of a bruin’s reach and the same stick to pull one of them down the following morning.

       David Graber was a complete legend here in Sequoia NP & Yosemite NP 50 years ago, and came up with the first bear box back in the day.

       Wildlife conservation lost a leader on August 19, 2022, when Dr. David Graber died suddenly at his home in Three Rivers, California, following a long battle with heart disease. David was a brilliant and dedicated wildlife biologist, innovator, and all-round thought leader at the National Park Service, where he rose to become Chief Scientist for the Western-Pacific Region, before retiring in 2014.

       I first met David in the 1970s, when we were graduate students at UC-Berkeley — he working on the bears of Yosemite and me on martens in the Sierra Nevada. I became an immediate fan of David’s freethinking brilliance, amazing vocabulary, excellent writing and speaking skills, and all-round warmth and generosity of spirit. He had an infectious, twinkly smile, a deep laugh, and a sharp and ready wit. In more recent decades, our interactions were mostly at work meetings and conferences, at which I took full advantage whenever possible to be Dave’s dinner partner, so I could hear his ideas and enjoy his witty observations on anything and everything.

       Among his many lifetime achievements, David will always be remembered as the inventor of the bear-proof food storage box, now ubiquitous in campgrounds across the country. His PhD study on Yosemite’s bears changed the thinking about bear management, and consequently how bears and humans interact on federal lands. This substantially reduced incidents of bears ravaging tents and autos, mauling humans, and being shot for it.

       https://consbio.org/news/remembering-dr-david-graber/

       Reply ↓
36. MikeFromMN September 16, 2025 at 1:45 pm

    I don’t find insurance premiums mentioned too often in MSM inflation articles. This is a concern for me as my premiums have gone up 80% in 3 years:
    – 164% for my wife’s ACA plan
    – 96% for home
    – 44% for car
    – 30% for life
    – 25% for my Medicare B/supplement
    Continuous increases anywhere near those levels will be ruinous for our finances over time. Are others experiencing such large increases?

    Reply ↓
    1. Yves Smith Post authorSeptember 16, 2025 at 1:55 pm

       Holy shit!!!

       Reply ↓
    2. MikeFromMN September 16, 2025 at 2:44 pm

       To clarify, the ACA premium that we pay had a large (164%) increase over 3 years due to increased premiums, increased income, and reduced subsidy. I expect the premium we pay to go up significantly again in 2026 as the subsidy goes away.

       Reply ↓
    3. mrsyk September 16, 2025 at 3:29 pm

       That’s crazy. How is one to maintain a roof over their heads?

       Another side to this. My in-laws own a a small place in a retirement oriented development in SoCal they inherited from his parents. Their insurer just dropped them. So far no luck finding new coverage. “Not insured” is a strong possibility. I can’t help but think of those uninsured owners burned out in the Palisades Fire.

       Reply ↓
       1. Wukchumni September 16, 2025 at 6:27 pm

          If you can’t get insurance on a house that you intend to buy on a mortgage, its not gonna happen and only cash buyers can play the game.

          Reply ↓
          1. mrsyk September 16, 2025 at 10:23 pm

             This is where we are headed. One disaster rich season would probably do the trick. I hear El Niño will be back next year.

             Reply ↓
    4. Carla September 16, 2025 at 3:36 pm

       MikeFromMN’s percentage increases look about right to me.

       Reply ↓
    5. griffen September 16, 2025 at 5:01 pm

       Just renewing my lease this week on 2 BR apartment in the southeast US. Fortunately the all in amount increased by a simple dollar amount, roughly $12; but the past years, since 2020 the increase was much higher in incremental terms. Possibly the crucial OER component of the varied CPI readings reflect that “lessened increases” in or by early 2026.

       But auto insurance had definitely skied much higher and cost of auto maintenance and repair increased perhaps even more. Owning a much older vehicle is no longer a question of if something breaks, but a question of when.

       PS. I’m on the sideline as I have little interest in “flinging my own poop” until certain matters begun to gradually abate or eased up. It’s all turned into a highly public shouting match.

       Reply ↓
       1. Carolinian September 16, 2025 at 5:42 pm

          Around here new apt buildings are popping up like kudzu. Supply may be exceeding demand.

          And everybody agrees the car insurance increases are ridiculous. It most seems to be the liability portion.

          Reply ↓
    6. chuck roast September 16, 2025 at 7:07 pm

       Hedge Funds and PE have piled into the insurance industries big-time the last few years. A real cash cow. Not only do they want a profit, they get to keep the milk too. Must be a pleasure to have them own and operate your domicile.

       Reply ↓
    7. Wukchumni September 16, 2025 at 9:08 pm

       My home could only garner a mere 28% increase in what I paid for insurance the year prior, but my cabin was the shining star, 304% increase from last year.

       Probably 1/3rd of the cabin owners in Mineral King have no insurance as they can’t get it, or in the case of one of the 73 owners of a beauty built in 1932 and added on over the years, but not as fruitful as the aforementioned generations of owners, now going on the 5th or 6th generation, one of the clan lives in Miami-pretty spread out too.

       Getting back to the guy with a 1/73rd share, he related they were quoted $10k a year and decided to bank the money instead and have $40k so far to go towards building a new cabin after the fire, and importantly there are some really good construction fellows in the family who would do the work.

       DIY insurance

       Reply ↓
    8. Pat September 16, 2025 at 9:38 pm

       The estimates for the increase of the 2026 Medicare premium on its own is over 11% with a similar increase in the deductible as per Kiplinger. I fully admit I have been scared to do any checking on my supplement. The 2.8% projected Social Security COLA increase will likely cover the Medicare increase but add in the probable Pt D drug premium and seniors are screwed before that optional supplement insurance increase.

       Reply ↓
37. XXYY September 16, 2025 at 3:39 pm

    In his own words, Qatar and China bankroll a “media siege” amplified through TikTok, bots, and ads, one [Netanyahoo] calls more powerful than traditional media.

    This is an interesting claim. I would argue that “traditional media” was extremely powerful since it was supported by very expensive advertisements placed by corporate and other elite entities. As a result of that arrangement, the traditional media hewed very closely to the line established by the people who bought these ads, giving them tremendous power.

    Since the downfall of this cozy arrangement, the political agenda of media platforms has been much harder by elites to control. This results in what governments and others now refer to as “fake news”, meaning information that elites do not approve of. Despite Herculean efforts, such as the close integration of US government intelligence agencies with Twitter, they seem to be having a very hard time putting this toothpaste back in the tube. We now have a situation where unapproved people all over the globe are having an easy time reaching a worldwide audience.

    The tendency, as with Netanyahu here, is for elites to blame this on official enemies and foreign state actors. But I think it’s just the regular old population that they’re hearing from.

    Reply ↓
    1. Alice X September 16, 2025 at 10:14 pm

       I hold that humanity should have a universal coherence with life kindred on this earth.

       Deconstruct the non sequitur

       Reply ↓
38. Neutrino September 16, 2025 at 3:45 pm

    Ringing off for foreseeable future as life is intervening.

    Reply ↓
    1. mrsyk September 16, 2025 at 4:19 pm

       Safe travels.

       Reply ↓
    2. Jonathan Holland Becnel September 16, 2025 at 6:35 pm

       Godspeed.

       🫡

       Reply ↓
39. LawnDart September 16, 2025 at 4:33 pm

    Re; News You Don’t Need

    Ex-Soviet state sees drop in marriages after cousin ban

    Azerbaijan has recorded a sharp decline in registered marriages following the introduction of a ban on unions between close relatives, local media has reported…

    Laws like this don’t seem to affect our Ivy and Ivy-adjacent bluebloods much… of course, we’ll always have THIS.

    Reply ↓
    1. lyman alpha blob September 16, 2025 at 5:22 pm

       Russians really are the best trolls.

       Reply ↓
    2. The Rev Kev September 16, 2025 at 7:56 pm

       Azerbaijan sounds like Shelbyville writ large-

       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULPwkpCy_-8 (54 secs)

       Reply ↓
    3. judy2shoes September 17, 2025 at 9:53 am

       Dead South classic. Thanks, LawnDart.

       Reply ↓
40. Ben Panga September 16, 2025 at 4:58 pm

    Re: US says ‘framework’ for TikTok ownership deal agreed with China

    Some more detail from the WSJ:

    U.S. Investors, Trump Close In on TikTok Deal With China Oracle, Silver Lake and Andreessen Horowitz are part of consortium that would control 80% stake (WSJ via archive.ph)

    One more social media giant falls to the technofascists.

    Ellison & Andreessen controlling the tube that pours 20 second videos into 100m Americans and (1bn worldwide) will make for some f***ed up fascist foie gras.

    I guess Bibi won’t have to worry about TikTok ‘antisemites’ talking about his genocide anymore.

    Reply ↓
    1. chuck roast September 16, 2025 at 7:19 pm

       Within six months they will have pocketed the down payment cash and leverage by floating bonds for the very same…all the while holding on to the equity which they off-load down the line in an IPO. This is not life in the food-chain that I am familiar with.

       Reply ↓
41. none September 16, 2025 at 5:37 pm

    Ha, when I heard Trump was going to outlaw “left wing extremist” groups, I sarcastically asked myself if that meant the DNC. Turns out yes, the whole party:

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-stephen-miller-outlaw-democratic-party-b2827609.html

    I wonder how this will play out.

    Reply ↓
    1. Ben Panga September 16, 2025 at 6:22 pm

       “CNN analyst says Trump looking at ways to outlaw Democratic party”

       Reply ↓
    2. Jonathan Holland Becnel September 16, 2025 at 6:38 pm

       So….

       New Party then?

       Reply ↓
       1. Wukchumni September 16, 2025 at 8:57 pm

          Suggested new name for the Donkey Show

          ‘Vigs’

          It lays bare what they’re all about, a little something for the effort.

          Reply ↓
    3. Lefty Godot September 16, 2025 at 9:08 pm

       Could this be the opportunity we’ve been waiting for, without the fake opposition party blocking the way, to launch a new and improved anti-Empire Left party? ☭🏴‍☠️☮︎

       Reply ↓
42. AG September 16, 2025 at 8:23 pm

    re: Nepal

    Five Theses On the Situation In Nepal
    By Vijay Prashad, Atul Chandra
    https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/five-theses-on-the-situation-in-nepal/

    Reply ↓
43. Revenant September 16, 2025 at 8:29 pm

    The article on China buying British schools is hilarious. Russia Russia Russia redux! “An anonymous Whitehall figure” indeed….

    For non-local readers, the Chinese owned high schools are curious choices, to say the least:

    – Thetford is a benighted part of Norfolk that is unlike the rest of the county, being flint and sand rather than arable breadbasket. The Grimes’ Graves neolithic tunnels are here and so is southern England’s largest modern forestry plantation. It is not too far from Cambridge and far too near various US airforce bases of Airstrip One. It has, bluntly, nothing to recommend it. I don’t see it as the launchpad for the Middle United Kingdom.

    – Wisbech is *more* than Thetford: more remote, more fertile, more north of Cambridge and more given to cousin marriage. The area used to be under the North Sea until the reclamation of the fens. Full disclosure, my former form master and French and German teacher moved to Wisbech Grammar. Rabarbe, Rabarbe, Rabarbe, Herr Wager.

    – Kingsley School, Bideford is very local to me and a million miles from civilisation. It’s lovely round here but not the obvious place for a Cultural Revolution. There’s nobody here but cows, surfers and cream tea providers.

    It is as if the Chinese were accused of buying one horse town High Schools in Iowa and Vermont.

    Reply ↓
44. AG September 16, 2025 at 9:03 pm

    re: Israeli economy

    JACOBIN

    How Israel’s War Economy Defied Economic Predictions

    By Assaf Bondy, Adam Raz
    
    Many observers thought that years of prolonged war would cripple Israel’s economy. But the opposite has happened. By giving billions of shekels in compensation to reservists, Israel has managed to keep its citizens spending while Gaza burns.

    https://jacobin.com/2025/09/israel-war-economy-reservist-compensation

    Reply ↓
45. Expat2uruguay September 16, 2025 at 10:16 pm

    I wonder if Netanyahu will confess to Trump that he had Charlie Kirk killed, and then explain to Trump how he did it as a personal favor to Trump, to protect him from losing political support from the he young conservatives. Would Trump recognize the bitter irony?

    Reply ↓
46. Ben Panga September 16, 2025 at 10:49 pm

    From Israel launches ground offensive deep inside Gaza City (Guardian)

    “The health ministry in Gaza reported on Tuesday afternoon that 59 people had been killed and 386 wounded in the previous 24 hours, bringing the official toll of Palestinians from nearly two years of war to almost 65,000. The actual number is feared to be significantly higher.“

    First time I’ve seen this formulation in the Guardian, which has previously been going with “65,000 according to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health”

    I think this is very important. The real death number is higher, as any credible estimates suggests.

    See e.g. paper Hoag mentions in his latest:
    https://arena.org.au/politics-of-counting-gazas-dead/
    
    “680,000 Gazans killed by violence and imposed deprivation by 25 April 2025 included about 380,000 under-five-year-old infants, 479,000 children in total, 63,000 women and 138,000 men.”

    If these numbers got coverage in the mainstream media, there would be much bigger demonstrations against the genocide.

    Reply ↓
47. mrsyk September 16, 2025 at 11:54 pm

    To be filed under Acceleration

    Minneapolis police say more than a dozen hurt in homeless encampment shootings, Guardian. The lede,

    Police chief says ‘here we are again in the aftermath of a mass shooting’ after incidents in two separate locations more,

    “If this city truly treated these shootings like the emergencies they are, people would already see grief and trauma counselors on the ground,” (homeless activist Hamoudi) Sabri told local media after the shooting. “Instead, the mayor’s answer is the same tired move we’ve seen for years: displacement. Bulldoze people’s tents, fence off their space, and call it leadership.”

    As housing affordability continues to soar beyond the means of most Americans and the number of unhoused people rises across the country, the topic is increasingly prevalent on the national stage.

    Indeed.

    Reply ↓
48. Jason Boxman September 17, 2025 at 12:05 am

    It Isn’t Just the U.S. The Whole World Has Soured on Climate Politics. (NY Times via archive.ph)

    Everyone gets to burn baby!

    Ten years ago this fall, scientists and diplomats from 195 countries gathered in Le Bourget, just north of Paris, and hammered out a plan to save the world. They called it, blandly, the Paris Agreement, but it was obviously a climate-politics landmark: a nearly universal global pledge to stave off catastrophic temperature rise and secure a more livable future for all. Barack Obama, applauding the agreement as president, declared that Paris represented “the best chance we have to save the one planet we’ve got.”

    Obama, of America becoming a new exporter of oil fame.

    A decade later, we are living in a very different world. At last year’s U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP29), the president of the host country, Azerbaijan’s Ilham Aliyev, praised oil and gas as “gifts from God,” and though the annual conferences since Paris were often high-profile, star-studded affairs, this time there were few world leaders to be found. Joseph R. Biden, then still president, didn’t show. Neither did Vice President Kamala Harris or President Xi Jinping of China or President Ursula von der Leyen of the European Commission. Neither did President Emmanuel Macron of France, often seen as the literal face of Western liberalism, or President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, often seen as the face of an emergent movement of solidarity across the poor and middle-income world. In the run-up to the conference, an official U.N. report declared that no climate progress at all had been made over the previous year, and several of the most prominent architects of the whole diplomatic process that led to Paris published an open letter declaring the agreement’s architecture out of date and in need of major reforms.

    Heh.

    The most conspicuous retreat, of course, has been the United States under President Trump, who first announced his intention to withdraw from Paris way back in 2017 with a ceremony in the Rose Garden. Trump has celebrated his return to office by utterly dismantling his predecessor’s signature climate bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, and vowing to stop all approvals for new renewable projects (not to mention paving over that same garden). But this is not just a story about Trump. When Paris was forged, the United States was a trivial exporter of natural gas, and it was still illegal to ship American oil abroad. Even before Trump’s second inauguration, the country had become the world’s largest producer and exporter of refined oil and liquid natural gas.

    (bold mine)

    And who made that possible? Look, the name is missing.

    Obama.

    Reply ↓
49. AG September 17, 2025 at 12:53 am

    re: US immigration labour

    LEE FANG with RON HIRA (telling name?)
    on SYSTEM UPDATE
    60 min. (ff to 7:20 min.)
    Trump’s Shifting Immigration and H-1B Policies: With Journalist Lee Fang and Political Science Professor Ron Hira | SYSTEM UPDATE #515
    https://rumble.com/v6yzzi8-system-update-show-115-lee-fang.html?e9s=src_v1_ucp_a

    Reply ↓
50. Ben Panga September 17, 2025 at 1:42 am

    Four arrested after images of Trump and Epstein projected on to Windsor Castle ahead of president’s visit

    Welcome to Britain you genocide-abetting creep

    Reply ↓
51. amfortas September 18, 2025 at 8:50 pm

    prolly 500 dragonflies swarming over the big fire pit.
    ducks below, agog…
    snapping at air.

    Reply ↓