Tiny Deer in Big Trouble as Chile’s Pudus Face Growing Peril Reuters
Shared genetic mechanisms underpin social life in bees and humans PLOS
The Treaty Mirage: History of Naval Warfare, Part 13 Big Serge Thought
Pandemics
The Covid-19 hospitalization risk associated with air pollution in New York state counties after the 2023 Quebec wildfires Journal of Public Health Research
Climate/Environment
Scientists predict wildfire smoke will be the most costly climate-related health hazard NBC News
***
The new gold rush is gripping investors: ‘In the past four years, I’ve invested much more heavily’ El Pais
Ghana’s toxic gold rush Food & Environment Reporting Network
What Republic of Congo’s gold rush is leaving behind Mongabay
Gold, greed, poison: How miners pollute Mozambique’s rivers DW
New gold mining push threatens sacred Black Hills lands and water Environmental Health News
China?
Huawei unveils new AI chip tech to rival Nvidia Business Times
How China’s COSCO is redrawing global shipping routes through Southeast Asia Think China
India
Rajapaksa, Hasina, Oli: Is there a puppeteer behind political upheaval in Indian sub-continent? Hindustan Times
Africa
Trump returns to a failed playbook in Africa Responsible Statecraft
In Congo, army and rebels dig in for war Trump says is over Reuters
Old Blighty
Trump’s visit proved the utter corruption of our political and media class Jonathan Cook
Elon Musk’s call for far-right insurrection in Britain meets silence from Starmer WSWS
Syraqistan
Israel is waging a holocaust in Gaza. Denazification is our only remedy +972 Magazine
Revealed: Tony Blair’s US-backed proposal for ending the Gaza war and replacing Hamas Times of Israel
Israel’s Intelligence Service Mossad: The Myth of “Long Arms” and the Reality of Failure Elijah J. Magnier
Leak indicates billionaire funders of Israeli cyber campaign targeting anti-apartheid activistsAll-Source Intelligence
NYPD arrests eight activists at Brooklyn Navy Yard protest over tenant ties Brooklyn Paper
For Gaza and Genoa Tribune
***
Strategic Diversification Becomes Unavoidable — The Result of a Sense of Betrayal Conflicts Forum
Saudi Arabia’s Defense Pact With Pakistan Is A Strategic Loss For The U.S. of A. Moon of Alabama
***
Macron says “snapback” of UN sanctions on Iran is done deal Axios
The Outlaw US Empire and the E3 flip their cards against Iran at the IAEA GeoPolitiQ
Erdogan secretly hosted Donald Trump Jr. at Istanbul palace, claims opposition leader Intellinews
Why is Iran Willing to Make an Agreement with the IAEA? Larry Johnson
***
As soon as Trump mentioned wanting to “take back” Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, the Western-funded NGOs began posting. pic.twitter.com/vOE9VvWyEX
— DD Geopolitics (@DD_Geopolitics) September 18, 2025
Trump admin has been quietly pushing to retake Afghan base from the Taliban for months, sources say CNN
European Disunion
European Commission set to launch restructure within months Politico. “Streamlining”, “more efficient and cost-effective”, “volatility as the new normal”, “cost-reduction.”
Nationwide protests against Macron’s austerity paralyze France for second day Press TV
Macrons to offer ‘scientific evidence’ to US court to prove Brigitte is a woman, lawyer says BBC
New Not-So-Cold War
EU Plans to Phase Out Russian LNG More Quickly After Trump Call Bloomberg
Lavrov speaks about Trump’s ‘disappointment’ with Ukraine talks RT
Poland hits back at Zelensky’s claim it can’t protect its people from mass Russian drone attack Notes from Poland
Poland Investigating Whether Its F-16’s AIM-120 Missile Destroyed A Home The War Zone
Warsaw turns to Ukraine for drone warfare expertise after Russian drones enter Polish airspace AP
Is Russia really going to build Europe’s largest high-speed rail network? Brian McDonald
Our Famously Free Press
Trump on Jimmy Kimmel: Networks that only criticize him ‘not allowed to do that’ The Hill
On Jimmy Kimmel: It’s Time to Destroy the Censorship Machine and Repeal the Telecommunications Act of 1996 BIG by Matt Stoller
Bosses Are Policing Speech at a New Level After Kirk’s Killing Bloomberg
Irreverence The Sense of an Ending
Trump 2.0
Trump asks Supreme Court to let him fire Fed governor Cook Al Jazeera
Intel’s biggest problem isn’t going away with Nvidia’s $5 billion stake Yahoo! Finance
Weimar Republic
“The Kirk narrative doesn’t hold.” The Floutist
🇺🇸🇮🇱 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu aka Lady MacBeth has released a video denying accusations that Israel had something to do with the assassination of Charlie Kirk. pic.twitter.com/5HBbsszLBW
— DD Geopolitics (@DD_Geopolitics) September 18, 2025
In his late July focus group with young conservatives on Israel, Charlie Kirk brought up the pressure he was under to cancel Tucker Carlson’s future appearance at TPUSA’s conference. “Whatever, that’s not gonna happen,” Kirk said. “The reason we’re doing this focus group,” he… pic.twitter.com/aH5obZ0nQl
— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) September 18, 2025
Democrats voice fears of violence over Charlie Kirk vote Axios
House leaders okay extra money for lawmaker security Regular Order by Jamie Dupree
***
Military leaders consider recruiting campaign centered around Charlie Kirk NBC News
Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk, named new CEO of Turning Point USA The Guardian
Here’s a clip from one of the church services — Prestonwood Baptist in TX.
As the pastor, Jack Graham, makes clear, this is not an actual clip of Charlie Kirk. He never said these words. This is an entirely AI-generated fabrication that, nonetheless, garners a standing ovation. https://t.co/JGvX3zNk9G pic.twitter.com/IzJ0IAwCb8
— Jack Jenkins (@jackmjenkins) September 18, 2025
Imperial Collapse Watch
Mission Impossible Harper’s
Rare ‘Naked’ E-4B ‘Doomsday Plane’ Spotted Flying In Texas The War Zone
Accelerationists
Inside Silicon Valley’s pivot to embrace defense startups in Southern California Los Angeles Times
AI
xAI’s Colossus 2 – First Gigawatt Datacenter In The World, Unique RL Methodology, Capital Raise Semi Analysis
AI Craziness Notes Zvi Mowshowitz
Albanian PM’s presentation of AI ‘minister’ to MPs ends in chaos Intellinews
Police State Watch
ICE agents didn’t have body cams during deadly shooting of Silverio Villegas González outside Chicago Chicago Sun-Times
Google Secretly Handed ICE Data About Pro-Palestine Student Activist The Intercept
California nurses decry Ice presence at hospitals: ‘Interfering with patient care’ The Guardian
MAHA
RFK Jr.’s vaccine panel makes a controversial change to the childhood vaccine schedule Politico
Controversial RFK Jr. Advisor Has Access to Private Info in CDC Vax Database MedPage Today
Supply Chain
US import dependence on EU on the rise, outpacing China, study finds Reuters. But as this post pointed out last year: “…it’s plausible that some Chinese exports are going to Mexico and the EU, being incorporated into other products, and then ending up as US imports.”
Europe struggles with chronic drug shortages, auditors warn Reuters
How Are Tariffs Impacting Chinese Exports to the US? China Briefing
Class Warfare
Amazon spends $1 billion to increase pay and lower health care costs for US workers AP
Every year before Prime Day, Amazon dangles a tiny raise to try to shut us up.
At today’s JFK8 all-hands meeting, a Senior Operations Manager bragged about Amazon’s “compensation philosophy” — base pay, benefits, step-plan raises — then announced a 50 CENT cost-of-living raise. pic.twitter.com/sLkn5u7tQP
— Amazon Labor Union IBT (@amazonlabor) September 17, 2025
The social crisis fueling the collapse of democracy in America WSWS
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
81 comments
Comments are closed.
“Military leaders consider recruiting campaign centered on Charlie Kirk”
Don’t know much about Charlie Kirk but I doubt that he wanted his Turning Point USA chapters turned into recruitment centers for the military. If he had, he would have set up separate chapters for that pathway as well. This is just another example of people trying to cash in on his death. Say what you will, the guy could laugh at himself-
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/cjYlOWbOcfU
They could maybe might release the files on Pat Tillman while they are at it.
Yeah, I was just thinking. The Pentagon featured Tillman in a recruiting campaign.
Within days of his assassination, Ben Shapiro made a million dollar donation to TPUSA and he and similar voices assumed control of his channel.
Your skepticism may not reflect those developments.
This Kirk thing has been so useful to so many people and orginizations, it’s almost like someone planned it!
*wink*
>Trump admin has been quietly pushing to retake Afghan base from the Taliban for months, sources say
The former Bagram Air Base is located in the interior of Afghanistan, near the capital city of Kabul. Recapturing the base would inevitably require large-scale warfare against the Taliban. That doesn’t seem like a good idea.
Not limiting this to the Trump administration, but not being a good idea is rarely the veto it should be for a desired military action when power, money, and decades of influence and grift are in the mix, especially coupled with warped ideology. At least it doesn’t looking back at the last fifty years I remember.
Recall that Bagram, and the entire country of Afghanistan for that matter, is completely landlocked. Anything needed to fight a military action there first needs to be brought in by air, leading to incredibly high costs for even basic military supplies. My memory is that a gallon of gasoline on military bases during the previous Afghan war cost in the neighborhood of $150.
79 year old billionaireTrump doesn’t seem to be losing his knack for advocating ridiculous and absurd ways to spend other people’s money.
$150.per gallon of gasoline is nothing compared to his planned bases on Antarctic, and ISS.
The new gold rush is gripping investors: ‘In the past four years, I’ve invested much more heavily’ El Pais
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For the longest time, the price of old yeller and marijuana were about the same per ounce*, around $300 to $400-it hardly varied for 20 years.
You can buy an ounce of 420 here for $50 now, but it’ll cost you 72x as much the other direction~
* ounces vary, avoirdupois ounces are 28+ grams, while troy ounces are 31+ grams
p.s.
To properly be an Argonaut (not you, Torontonians) in seeking out placer on a river in say Downieville, you need 7 items:
A gold pan and a 6-pack of beer
Appreciate the CFL shout out — though I live between Toronto and Hamilton, I remain an Alouettes fan from my early childhood on the West Island in Montreal.
I suppose you can get a piece of gold, shove it in the ground for a thousand years or more and when you dig it up, it is will as good as new and still worth something. With all these digital coins, how do you even save them for a century without them disappearing?
Native Americans seemed to have no interest in all that glitters…
The aforementioned Gold Rush town of Downieville is one of my favorites, and the scene of the only woman hanged in Cali, but more importantly early 49’ers could expect to gather a tin cup worth of placer in a day’s work on the Yuba or Downie rivers, thus one spot was named ‘Tin Cup Diggins’
https://www.malakoff.com/downvill.htm
I first visited the Gold Country in the early 1980’s, and fell in love with the lore and leftovers in what was then California’s Appalachia, with every house seemingly sporting 3.7 cars on the lawn.
Worth a road trip on Hwy 49 from Mariposa to Downieville.
Use the “print” option?
How long will modern day paper last? Regardless. Gold is worth something all by itself and does not need a backing organization much less infrastructure. Digital coins need both and a lot of the former are just glorified fly by night operators. I’d rather invest in Dutch tulips.
One of the odd items to come out of the post USSR woodwork was 1882 & 1922 series $100 Gold Certificate notes, or Horseblankets as we called them in the trade, being about 40% larger in size than a current FRN.
Maybe 500 of these turned up on the marketplace in the early 1990’s, all probably formerly residing inside walls in Moscow.
The reason a hundred is called a C note?
That was the designation on the reverse of the note.
https://www.worldbanknotescoins.com/2014/10/1922-one-hundred-dollar-gold-certificate-thomas-hart-benton.html
Warning: I followed the link to that site and in the upper right corner, a porn video or GIF appeared and started playing.
I see silver is set to challenge Hunt bro highs.
In $ terms, but measured for inflation…
$48 in 1980 had the buying power of $200 now~
Geez, that was one hellova bubble. $6 to $48 to $6 within a few years~
I’d seen small time bubbles before, but this was my primer in the big leagues of bubble which climaxed a month into adulthood for yours truly.
Heady days and it also resulted in the end of what i’d commonly see in that you’d often have coin & stamp stores in one building when I was a teenager, and US stamps had started going south in the late 70’s (virtually every brand new never used US stamps from the 1930’s onward is what is called ‘discount postage’ and sells for around 75% of face value, because who wants to plaster an envelope with 29x 3 Cent stamps?) and interest was waning big-time, combined with the windfall from the Hunt Bros for numismatists-so came the schism.
We always viewed stamp dealers with polite scorn, in that the one thing they lacked was a true wholesale market-as existed in the coin biz. And the idea that when we saw them in their corner at the big coin show in Long Beach, it often seemed as if they were babysitters for 60 something year old single men-tweezers in hand, pawing through the Nickel a stamp books, taking 3 hours to select 47 stamps, and then trying to beat the seller down to a couple bucks.
question for the resident coin/stamp/etc guru: that article caused me to dig out a couple of small envelopes I received from my mom before she died that have been stashed in a drawer for the past five years.
how close to the Monex listing should I expect to get for mint quality (still in their plastic sleeves) coins?
thank you!
“Trump admin has been quietly pushing to retake Afghan base from the Taliban for months, sources say”
Yeah, I know it’s CNN but that headline makes no sense. Neither did Trump when he said ‘We gave it to them for nothing. We’re trying to get it back, by the way. That could be a little breaking news, we’re trying to get it back because they need things from us…We want that base back but one of the reasons we want the base is, as you know, it’s an hour away from where China makes its nuclear weapons.’ He went on to say that Bagram was one of the biggest airbases in the world, with one of the biggest runways constructed of heavy concrete and steel.
OK, for a start I would say that Russia has a stronger claim to that airfield as they actually built it, not the Americans. But when Trump says it is only an hour away from China’s nuclear facilities, what he actually means is that the US could stage nuclear bombers through Bagram to attack China or at the very least, keep Bagram as a dagger at China’s throat. I’m sure that they would not have a problem with that. But Trump saying ‘We gave it to them for nothing’ is just deluded. That’s like saying that the British gave Yorktown to the Americans in 1781 for nothing. If the Afghans let the US back in, it would be a constant source of instability and US forces would use it to help ISIS forces attack Afghanistan. The whole thing is just crazy talk and the Afghans would be better just keeping the place for itself-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagram_Airfield
DT Barnum has to introduce meaningless fluff all the time to divert you from seeing something failing elsewhere on his watch, and by the way-you know the recent inflation numbers on foodstuffs?
…all Biden’s fault!
“Hey, we may have lost the Ukraine war, but we’re back in Afghanistan!”
New rallying cry …
So, what have we learned?
There are nights, when all the world’s asleep
The questions run so deep, for such a simple man
Won’t you please, please tell me what we’ve learned?
I know it sounds absurd, please tell me who I am
Supertramp, the Logical Song
A fair point that. He points and shouts ‘Look at what is happening over there’ – while he guts the First Amendment in the background.
Scientists predict wildfire smoke will be the most costly climate-related health hazard NBC News
Laughably fails to see the fire through the smoke.
The remnants of tropical storm Super Mario have rained on our parade thankfully, and we look to have dodged the 2025 bullet when it comes to wildfire action, giving me another year to work on the lower canopies of trees on the all cats and no cattle ranch.
“Poland Investigating Whether Its F-16’s AIM-120 Missile Destroyed A Home”
Maybe those pilots should give the missiles a bit of a miss and go with the onboard 20 mm M61A1 Vulcan 6-barrel rotary cannon instead. I notice Israeli pilots using their cannons to shoot down cheap drones as it is more cost effective.
Can’t somebody please create fighter drones? I see some very good homemade drones online, and drone wars might be fun to watch. I’d love to have a fighter drone to make sure snoop-drones aren’t hovering around the house.
My engineer son with much drone building experience as a teen devised the simplest spy drone defense – a long piece of fishing line attached to the bottom of his quad with wax. Fly it above the spy drone to get the line in its rotors to throw off its balance.
I believe they are being used by both sides over Ukraine.
>Israel’s Intelligence Service Mossad: The Myth of “Long Arms” and the Reality of Failure
Fortunately, the privileges enjoyed by the Mossad are also available to all U.S. intelligence agencies. For instance, if CIA agents were caught stealing passports and impersonating Germans or Australians, those countries would likely show leniency.
The Mossad was caught using Aussie passports as part of an assassination campaign some years ago. When our government hauled them over the coals about them doing so, they got all aggressive and said that they could use any passport they wanted. Bonus points for hubris but zero points for diplomacy.
The word is chutzpah.
Of course they could, but countries whose passports they stole have both roght and duty to punish them.
I mean, Black Bart may have had the right to pirate. But he didn’t have the right to avoid the hangman and the gibbet.
– ‘On Jimmy Kimmel: It’s Time to Destroy the Censorship Machine and Repeal the Telecommunications Act of 1996’ – BIG by Matt Stoller
This essay is good in an informative way, but it is extremely depressing psychologically – or perhaps spiritually. Show of hands: how many think it possible to repeal the Telecommunications Act of 1996, or can even conceive of a political path for doing so?
Our politics and policies have been moving in one direction, and one direction only, since the 1970s, bringing us to this Trumpian moment. Ratchet-like, each political iteration has guaranteed that things will only get worse, and that there will be no going “backwards” to the old days of New Deal/Social Democrat hopefulness. In all honesty, when I read Yves post on the machinations behind the Kimmel firing today, my first thought was: “Thanks, Bill Clinton, for the Telecommunications Act.” So there was a twinge of bittersweet recognition – I was going to say “satisfaction” but that doesn’t fit – when this reaction was reinforced by Stoller’s piece. Stoller makes the important observation that this moment has been a long time in development, and that like so many other of our domestic and foreign policy nightmares it has been a heroic bipartisan effort. Indeed many of the most important “ratchet-effects” have been imposed during Democrat administrations (the Clinton administration was central in many of these; thanks again Bill).
However, rather than understanding this linear process that has gifted so much potential power to our Orange Hitler, our sheep-herded political consciousness is cyclical. Things get so bad under Reagan/Bush that we wildly celebrate a Clinton victory. But eight years later Clinton has been so bad that we are apathetic or even hostile toward Gore, and though we won’t vote for Bush, how much worse could this “compassionate conservative” be? Then after the Bush holocaust we celebrate an Obama victory, perhaps with more caution but God, it’s got to be way better than the Bush/Cheney nightmare, doesn’t it? After the ratchets are turned some more we are so pissed that we refuse to support Clinton II, and we get Trump. And so on. If only we could go back to the good old days of Reagan, maybe there would still be a chance to slow this thing down. But…
I think some voters were clearly ready for change, as we saw Nader and Buchanan get votes, and the former got enough votes by Democrat reckoning that it ostensibly (lol) cost Gore the election, rather than his lame candidacy. The chorus for real change was even louder eight years later, and Obama expertly played that to bring us two terms of Trump and a term of senile Biden. It seems impossible to be pessimistic enough.
This timeline is stupid.
While they’re at it, unwind the Obama Smith Mundt propaganda and flat-out lying legislation to the American public. It is hard enough these days without having to parse through more lies that have official sanction!
In the mid 1990s we hosted a high school exchange student from Türkiye that was gobsmacked and actually got angry when TV comedians made fun of then President Clinton. “You can’t do that, you can’t make fun of a president”, he angrily proclaimed. That we were laughing at the jokes further disconcerted him. It would now appear that the joke is on us, and it’s not funny.
We could get our relatives out of Czechoslovakia (and paid their airfare etc as well) but it was tantamount to a hostage situation in that Aunt Jarmila could come-but her better half Uncle Freddy had to stay back in Prague, we’ll have none of this defecting!
Her English was quite halting as comes with the territory, and one night the whole family is watching Saturday Night Live and on come the Festrunk Brothers looking for foxes and speaking a wee bit of pidgin Czech, and Auntie Jarmila practically explodes in anger, her face flush with indignation- They./ Are./ Not./ Czech! she screams like a Gatling gun, and resists any attempts by us to explain what was clearly lost in translation
There’s a famous apocryphal anecdote that circulates amongst expats in Turkey. A Western businessman is being shaken down for a bribe by a minor government official. (That part is not apocryphal; happens all the time.) After refusing and getting nowhere, finally in exasperation he takes a banknote out of his wallet and slaps it down on the counter. ‘Oh, sir,’ says the functionary, pointing to the note and shaking his head, with the intimation of further consequences. ‘That is Ataturk you just insulted.’
There are things Stoller leaves out such as how television itself narrowed media ownership by making newspapers less popular and leaving many cities including big cities with little print news competition. Often the remaining newspaper companies would in turn own television stations.
And as mentioned elsewhere today the justification for all these mergers was in part internet and cable and the rise of still newer technology that made broadcast less important than in its ultimate heyday of the 1960s and 70s. Plus the barriers to entry for starting a television station were great and to have any reach those transmitting towers used a lot of electricity (some have now reduced that).
If you include the internet we now arguably have a much greater range of opinion than in the late 20th with is three networks and high magazine ownership consolidation (Time-Life etc). We are reading some of it now.
Trump has as far as I know not yet employed state power to go after Bill Maher, whose insults were much more trenchant than anything Kimmel ever uttered on air. Maher’s regularly describing Trump as Putin’s cock holster is but one example. I stopped watching Maher awhile back because I couldn’t stomach his adoration of the Israelis but I do recall it being in the news that he actually supped with Trump, which I interpreted as his bending the knee. Perhaps this immunized Maher.
Maher and John Oliver are on HBO, a paid cable subscription channel, not over the air TV. Maybe Trump can have him tax auditied.
I got this chilling second coming feeling listening to AI Charlie talking from beyond the grave, and then getting a standing ovation…
He is AIrisen!
I wonder if they asked Kirk’s widow permission to pull this stunt. There are so many ways that this could get abused that it is not funny. I sure that Kirk’s friend Tucker Carlson would have thoughts on this.
Cross-connecting a dot, is there any way legally to protect yourself from beyond-the-grave AI fakes?
The star college athletes now have “Name/Image Likeness” contracts that pay them anytime someone uses their NIL, so there must be an “or else” that provides legal penalties if someone like me tries to ripoff their image to push my own brand without paying or getting their permission.
Any IP lawyers out there have a suggestion? Should we all be adding clauses to our wills to the effect of, “any unauthorized use of the deceased’s blah blah blah without the consent of the estate is strictly forbidden and shall be punishable by fines of $XXX?
It writes itself. Philip K. Dick + Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor.
Is it the real second coming or the Grand Inquisitor right that it is just AI? It being Philip K. Dick, the reader never knows.
There is a strange synergy between the various pandemic outbreaks and the increase in wildfires occurring in the last few years. In both cases, there is a danger of inhaling something that will damage your lungs or make you sick, and as a result there has been a tremendous uptick in the awareness and ownership of “civilian” respirator equipment.
My household not only did sporadic research of the various available N95 respirators, but also laid in a box full of masks and filters at various times in response to pandemic waves and wildfire outbreaks. I would also like to say that there is a greater comfort and familiarity with seeing people walking around with respirators on, though sadly that is weaker than I would like. Still, it’s much more common than it was a couple of decades ago to see people out in public wearing respirators.
Evidently our various crises can help reinforce each other’s solutions when we are lucky.
I did a search recently and settled on Moldex respirators/masks for a variety of reasons. One is that they are really easy to breathe through. Instead of a flat surface the mask is shaped like an accordion which greatly increases the surface area and, therefore, lowers the pressure needed to inhale or exhale. Moldex dot com
Once upon a time in America…
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lbj-smothers-brothers/
The whole story.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2019/03/19/a-president-was-furious-over-a-comedy-skit-it-wasnt-trump-fuming-about-snl/
Note that CBS itself was intent on censoring the show and eventually gave it a Kimmel. I liked the show but that was soooo very long ago. Given Vietnam and all the rest the context was quite different. It’s not that the public themselves favored watered down television or rules about “fairness”–Carlin’s famous words you can’t say–but back then “liberal media” was a real thing whereas now neoliberal and conservative media are a real thing so it’s a matter of beware of what you ask for.
In any case broadcast is fading fast. The only think I watch would be PBS. I don’t get cable.
Assume they cut her a check for use of his likeness. A check to TPUSA, the non-profit, and not one of the affiliated entities that don’t have to even glance at 501(c)(3) requirements around political action.
So apparently the hysteria about the Trump administration gutting public funding for the humanities is just liberal “fake news”:
“The Trump administration, through the National Endowment for the Humanities, is giving the largest grant in the agency’s history — over $10 million — to the Jewish-American neoconservative Tikvah Fund to counter “the pathology of anti-Semitism” and teach the Talmud.”
“The Tikvah Fund is an Israel First group dedicated to advancing “Jewish excellence” that is run by CEO Eric Cohen and famed neoconservative Elliott Abrams…”
https://www.informationliberation.com/?id=65039
In case you think this is Onion-like satire, here is the official announcement:
https://www.neh.gov/news/neh-announces-Tikvah-grant
There’s a handsome picture of Elliot Abrams in the original article that’s suitable for framing.
Let’s not worry too much about Jimmy Kimmel and late-night TV either. Though Charlie Kirk is no longer available, I’m sure the Trump administration can help ABC find a suitable replacement with mass appeal very soon.
On one of my rare visits to town this morning I was greeted by several CHABAD signs planted at intersections.
Genocide deniers.
Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night. You went to sleep in america , brother, and you woke up in israel.
When I hear the name Elliott Abrams, I am anchored on that Woodstock PA announcement.
Elliott from Harvard, the hitchhikers you picked up need the pills they left in your car.
Coincidence? Foggy memory? What kinds of pills, goofballs?
Walmart’s lax vetting helped fuel a Marketplace boom, but came with fakes and frauds (CNBC)
Sounds about right
There’s been plenty of this on Amazon, why not on Walmart?
I’ve always despised thirty party sellers. Always a dice roll. If I wanted that, I’d buy from Ebay. Sheesh.
Not that I buy that much on-line, but Google always seems to show me walmart.com stuff, and long ago, I determined not to ever buy anything there because the website was so horrible. At least 1/2 the time, the product shown by Google didn’t actually exist (dead link) or wasn’t for sale (no buy button) or had a much higher price. If they can’t even run their website, how are they ever going to vet their vendors.
Get rest ye merry late night gentlemen
Let nothing you dismay
Remember your dissuader
Was borne on Inauguration Day
To save us all from satire’s pow’r
When we were gone astray
Oh tidings of comfort and joy
Comfort and joy
Oh tidings of comfort and joy
In Queens, at Jamaica hospital
This blessed Babe was born
And laid within a manger
Upon this blessed morn
The which His Mother Mary
Did nothing take in scorn
Oh tidings of comfort and joy
Comfort and joy
Oh tidings of comfort and joy
Fear not them, said the avenging angel
Whisk them into the scorned field of life
This day is borne a couple outcasts
Out of pure spite
To free all those who trust in them
From satire’s pow’r and might
Oh tidings of comfort and joy
Comfort and joy
Oh tidings of comfort and joy
Get rest ye merry late night gentlemen
Let nothing you dismay
Remember your dissuader
Was borne on Inauguration Day
To save us all from satire’s pow’r
When we were gone astray
Oh tidings of comfort and joy
Comfort and joy
Oh tidings of comfort and joy
New Big Serge looks interesting but is mostly paywalled.
https://bigserge.substack.com/p/the-treaty-mirage
Oops missed it up in Links–sorry
I’m an avid reader of Big Serge, and his naval history series is really impressive – well worth the subscription fee. I wish he’d write an actual book about it.
Is Russia really going to build Europe’s largest high-speed rail network? —
Maybe yes, maybe no, probably somewhat but not completely. The Sapsan train linking Moscow and St Pete is plenty fast already (about 4.5 hours when I took it), but a mere 2 hours would be great. A European high-speed train network would certainly alleviate the stress on RU’s sanctioned civil air fleet, and of course most of RU’s citizens live in its European part.
But the important part of this article lies at the very end: ‘…..Russia can still dream big in an era when its Western European rivals no longer even dare to dream.’ As Kenneth Clark said in his excellent ‘Civilisation’ book and TV series long ago, civilization is all about confidence. Whatever its faults, RU (not to mention China) seems to be embracing the 21st century in stride, confidently looking forward to better times ahead. I don’t see this in the west anymore; only in today’s news, we see a thin-skinned USA president threatening media censorship on anyone who dares to mock him, and a terrified Poland closing its only rail link to China (all because a few unarmed drones made from plywood and styrofoam entered its airspace). Definitely not the behavior of people who are confidently facing the future; it’s a bit pathetic and embarrassing, actually.
I hope RU pulls this off. I prefer trains to airplanes: it’s better to be down here wishing you were up there, than to be up there wishing you were down here.
Headline in Politico:
“RFK Jr.’s vaccine panel makes a controversial change to the childhood vaccine schedule”
Guardian:
“CDC panel recommends multiple shots for measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox instead of single vaccine”
The Boston Globe
“Kennedy’s advisory panel recommends new restrictions on MMRV vaccines”
So what are these new “controversial” “restrictions” causing “multiple” shots?
CDC previous report to healthcare providers (updated 2021)
“Unless the parent or caregiver expresses a preference for MMRV vaccine, CDC recommends that MMR vaccine and varicella vaccine should be administered as separate injections for the first dose in children 12-47 months of age.”
The new recommendation that RFK Jr’s panel came out with on Sept.. 18 2025:
“The Committee by a vote of eight to three recommends that toddlers through age three be immunized for varicella (chickenpox) through standalone vaccination rather than through the combination measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella (MMRV) vaccine.”
So exactly why is this so controversial?
Because it requires an additional MD visit, as in a hard cost and a cost on parent’s time. So the assumption is reduced rates of vaccination.
Having said that, I space my vaccinations out. I don’t get the flu shot (well I did once because they seem to have some efficacy if you get them every 5 years, better than an annual jab) but even if I did, I would not get it the same time as another vaccine. The extra immune system load increases the risk of getting an infection right after the shot. That is already an issue with getting a single. Kids arguably have more robust immune systems than old people so the risk tradeoff might not be the same.
re: US media takeover by Israel lobby
USEFUL IDIOTS
Chris Hedges: Charlie Kirk, Israel & Sanctifying the Martyr
Watch a free preview of our episode and subscribe for the full chat with Chris Hedges on how the Israel lobby is about to take over CBS, Paramount, and CNN
segment starts TC 19:21 – 44:30
https://www.usefulidiotspodcast.com/p/chris-hedges-charlie-kirk-israel
re: First Amendment
TAIBBI
The Ultimate Reason Not to Censor
If the Trump Administration follows through on its F.C.C. threats, we’ll all be robbed of the joy of legacy media failure
Matt Taibbi
pay-walled
https://www.racket.news/p/the-ultimate-reason-not-to-censor
re: Kimmel
GREGG COLLARD for RACKET NEWS (TAIBBI)
Jimmy Kimmel’s Political Hackery
He isn’t just a comedian
Greg Collard
Sep 19, 2025
https://www.racket.news/p/jimmy-kimmels-political-hackery
Pretty bad. Seems like the right minded are sure they know what Kimmel was thinking or completely oblivious to the possibility that what he was implying was the killer was of similar mind and (vengeance) motivations as MAGA folks or simply that he was an ideological crazy. I have yet to read about Kimmel explaining what he meant so everyone is just making assumptions. This is part an parcel of the administration using accusations as cause to fire people.
Comedians have been political for a very long time. This pretense that Kimmel represents some big break with the past is ridiculous.
My memory isn’t perfect, but I used to watch Carson and especially Letterman quite a bit. I also watched the Daily Show and Colbert Report every single day, and both were exclusively political humor. While there may be exceptions, in general those older shows made fun of politicians or corporations. Letterman used to famously mock his parent company on a regular basis. They punched up. Kimmel went after the politicians too but he also frequently mocked the supporters of those politicians. He, and the Colbert of network TV, punched down.
There’s also the issue of how much sponsorship the networks were receiving from Pfizer in recent years as comedians like Kimmel went around clowning people for not taking the vaccine. Making fun of regular people who might be mistrustful of politicians and corporate media while shilling for the pharmaceutical industry isn’t exactly cutting edge comedy. If he and Colbert were funny, I would have tuned in, like I used to every night.
That being said, I agree with Taibbi and apparently now also Ted Cruz(!) that government should not be stepping in and putting fingers on the scale.
In a move surprising no one, Samsung has started to serve ads on their appliances. This is despite telling everyone earlier this year that would not (pinky swear). I’m more motivated than ever to keep my current dumb appliances working as long as possible now.
This is just a small step towards the end goal, unskippable ads before opening the fridge.
Huge if true
Trump Says the U.S. Will Institute $100,000 Fee for Skilled Worker Visas
This has been ravaging tech employment for over 20 years. Please be true.
MAGA division seems like good news for the US:
Senator Ted Cruz says US broadcast regulator acted like ‘mafioso’ on Jimmy Kimmel
On his podcast Verdict with Ted Cruz, the senator emphasised on Friday that he hated what Kimmel said about Kirk, and he is “thrilled that he was fired”. He also said Carr was “a good guy”.
“But what he said there is dangerous as hell,” Cruz added. “And so he threatens, explicitly, we’re going to cancel ABC’s licence.
“We’re going to take them off the air so ABC cannot broadcast anymore. He says we can do this the easy way, or we could do this the hard way, yeah. And I got to say that’s right out of Goodfellas.
“That’s right out of a mafioso coming into a bar going, nice bar you have here, it’d be a shame if something happened to it,” he added, using a mobster voice.
He warned that if the government gets into the business of bans and regulating what the media says “that will end up bad for conservatives”.
Linking to this (the original source) on the ongoing fee story about H-1Bs, since the reporting on it seems more than usually bad:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/restriction-on-entry-of-certain-nonimmigrant-workers/
Extract with important parts bolded:
So the key points are:
– It will now cost $100k to apply for an H-1B visa
– This rule is in force for 12 months and will cease to apply unless renewed (these two points are being incorrectly reported in some places as a $100k annual fee)
– If you are well connected, you can get the government to agree to an exemption on either an individual, company or industry basis.
Assuming this goes ahead, it’s going to kill the Infosys/Wipro model pretty much dead (not that anybody will shed tears for it). It would probably also harm the big US tech companies like Amazon and Microsoft, except that Trump claims they’re supportive, so if he’s not blowing smoke then that probably means they have their Section 2c exemptions lined up already.
As for smaller businesses (namely any without a hotline to the Secretary of Homeland Security) H-1B will be pretty much dead for them as well. They will still be able to sponsor employees for employment based green cards, which seems to be out of the scope of this order. It costs more than the old H-1B, but vastly less than 100k. You do need to demonstrate that you couldn’t find a US worker to do the job, which shouldn’t be a problem if that was the main reason businesses needed H-1Bs, as they are now saying (I’m skeptical, but I guess it’s put up or shut up time now).
If this sees a shift from H-1Bs to green card employment then I don’t think it will be a bad development in terms of the labor market (economic consequences are another story) but I doubt things are that simple. If I’m right about the carve-outs for big tech then it will place them in an even more privileged position than they now enjoy. I also wouldn’t be surprised to see a similar measure targeted at employment based green cards, since I think the goal is less about ending the exploitation of temporary workers and more about lowering immigration overall.
Assuming this goes ahead, it’s going to kill the Infosys/Wipro model pretty much dead (not that anybody will shed tears for it)
I lost 3+ hours of my life this week babysitting Wipro during a non-incident I was required to be the ranking adult on. Let’s f—ing goooooooooo
(appreciate the links to the actual rules, I saw this float by on a news aggregator earlier and wondered how big tech was planning to exempt/weasel their way out of the 100k fee)
Section 3c is an escape clause big enough to drive a truck through. It makes it almost impossible to know what this will mean in practice. Perhaps it’s all just a big extortion play, intended as leverage to get something else that the administration wants, after which the Secretary will ‘determine’ that all those workers weren’t a threat to security or welfare after all, and the technology sector can have a blanket exemption – subject to revocation at any time, of course, if the administration changes its mind.
Not to mention there’s the question of whether the executive even has the authority to charge that kind of fee in the first place (immigration lawyers think they don’t) and how that gets resolved in practice.