I keep coming back to the War in Ukraine, always confused by the paucity of reliable information and independent judgment, as the info war for control of the narrative almost seems to loom larger than the fighting and dying in the steppe.
In a superficial way, I glean the pro-Ukraine side these days primarily from the social media influencer, Preston Stewart, who has become practically an official Pentagon flack, and from the online news headlines from the German pseudo-legacy-media outlet, Business Insider. I am getting my daily dose of pro-Russian takes primarily on X-twitter from Military Summary channel, Geroman, and the like, with some flavor from NC blog.
It is a curious business, this daily onslaught of video clips and takes. I do not know what to make of much of it. The North Koreans have come and gone from Kursk allegedly, a mere meme speck in the torrent of narrative; what purpose did that story serve?
The absence of official casualty figures for meat licenses seemingly limitless speculation. Russian use of improvised infantry vehicles prompts speculation that the Russians are running out of suitable armor. Videos of fireballs supports the idea that Ukraine is successfully using long-range drones against Russian gas and oil infrastructure. Ukraine has cut off Slovakia and Hungary and Moldova including Transnistria from Russian supply by other means. Still, the Russians inch forward more-or-less steadily on the ground across a broad front, enveloping villages and breaching an endless series of defensive fortifications.
Back at the war for the control of the narrative front, I have noticed that the elevation of Trump has occasioned Tucker Carlson getting more mileage from labeling Zelensky, “a dictator”. The new regime in Washington is undermining the institutional foundations for the Russiagate hoax, but getting remarkable pushback. Every once in a while, I glance at the Wikipedia entries for Russiagate and what Wikipedia diplomatically terms “the counternarrative” to see if there are any signs of crumbling. (Wikipedia is solidly supportive of the Democratic version of Russiagate on every point, but I figure that will change at some point and when it changes, that will indicate something about the zeitgeist.)
Reading Jeff St. Clair’s “Roaming Charges” at Counterpunch this morning, a couple of interesting items which could be filed under “They’re Just Not That Into Her”– which is the title of the Trump v. Harris piece–
On YouTube before the election, Kamala got 6.8 million views, Trump 113.6 million. This reaffirms Guy DeBord’s Society of the Spectacle, written way back in the 60s. Something will generally beat nothing.
Also, Greenlanders were polled on joining the US or sticking with Denmark– only 6% are stupid enough to want to be swallowed like a mint by the US, 85% favor sticking with their Euro-Overlord.
Oh, and he has a link to Mike Davis’ “Last Interview” with The (feh!) Guardian. Sorry to hear Mike is going, I read his classic City of Quartz around the 1990s, generally ranked among the best books about L.A. He chose not to treat his advancing cancer and go out his own way. He certainly saw how L.A. would turn from a Utopia into a Dystopia long before others. Link to the St. Clair piece is at https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/01/31/roaming-charges-the-trick-of-disaster/
Gotta appreciate the hat tip to Neil Young too (before he became a senile ShitLib). Like the ancient Greeks warned– Never judge a man’s (or for that matter a woman’s) life until it’s over.
In the HHS confirmation hearing for RFK Jr., Dr and senator Bill Cassidy provided a meta-analysis as undeniable proof that vaccines do not cause autism.
What would you consider to be undeniable proof? Write it down and fall down the rabbit hole with me.
You can use this link to get past any paywalls to view every study discussed in its entirety. https://sci-hub.se/
In the Eligibility criteria section 2.2 it states:
“Studies were included that looked at either MMR vaccination”
That would be 1 out of 14 vaccines currently on the CDC childhood schedule, or 6 out of 74 doses.
The MMR vaccine is first given at 1 year of age. By age 1 children have already received 25 doses.
There were no studies on the 25 vaccine doses before the MMR dose, no studies on the total number of vaccines given, no studies on unvaccinated verse vaccinated children.
There are simply 6 studies looking at highly vaccinated children with the MMR vaccine compared to highly vaccinated children without the MMR vaccination.
Looking at each study:
—
Madsen 2002.
This study was funded by multiple organizations who either own vaccine patents, or make billions of dollars selling vaccines (In the notes section at the end of the study). The authors worked for these organizations.
“children were assigned to the nonvaccinated group until they received the MMR vaccine.”
When a study openly admits they falsely classified the groups, imagine what they did that they won’t tell you.
To make it clear the effects of false classification here’s an example:
Every year 1% of the population develops disease X.
In a 5 year study half the population is given chemical Y 2 years into the study.
The Y group ends with a disease rate of 5.5%
The control group ends with a rate of 5%
However, if you falsely classify the groups –as the above study does– you can find that chemical Y not only doesn’t increase disease X it lowers it.
Even with this false classification, table 1 shows that the MMR vaccinated group had 17% more cases of autism.
The study still manages to find a way to claim the vaccine isn’t associated with autism by using “person-years” instead of autism cases.
“Person-years” adds or subtracts rates depending on when the diagnosis was made. Autism diagnosed at 4 years counts as a lower rate of autism than a case diagnosed at 2 years.
Why would the conflict of interest funded study do this? Might have something to do with one of the authors, Poul Thorsen being on the FBI’s most wanted list for over 20 counts of fraud and stealing a million dollars from the CDC.
—
Uchiyama 2007.
In Japan from 1988 to 1992 the MMR vaccination rate decreased from 70% to 2% because there were reports that the MMR vaccine was causing meningitis.
Japan then introduced a new MMR vaccine and by the mid 90’s vaccination rates surpassed all previous levels.
Obviously we could look at autism rates from the low vaccination years and compare them to the higher years and hopefully glean some useful information.
For what can only be a honest scientific reason that I am too uneducated to grasp the study decided not to do this. Instead it chose to mix the low and high vaccination groups together and compare them with another mixed group.
Sadly they do not provide yearly data so we cannot look at it ourselves.
Have no fear though, here is the data kindly provided. Go ahead and look at table 1 and figure 1 and help me comprehend why they decided not to compare high vaccination years with low ones. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15877763/
—
Destefano 2004.
This study was done by the CDC which owns dozens of vaccine patents and makes billions selling vaccines.
They found:
“Similar proportions of case and control children had been {MMR}vaccinated before 18 or before 24 months”
They also found:
Children who received the MMR vaccine before age 3 had a 1.49 increased rate of autism.
“Using a 36-month cutoff, more case {diagnosed with autism} children than control children were vaccinated before 36 months of age (OR: 1.49; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.04–2.14)”
One of the authors, William W. Thompson later became a whistleblower revealing that while he and the authors in this study were at the CDC they committed fraud and destroyed evidence showing vaccines cause autism.
Did I just hear a jaw slamming into the floor or was that the dog demanding lunch?
—
Mrozek-Budzyn 2010.
“there were 9 children not vaccinated”
Got that? In this study of 288 children there was 9 who did not receive the vaccination in question.
“Cases of autism were considered as vaccinated if vaccination preceded the onset of symptoms.”
“Controls were considered vaccinated if they received their vaccination before age of symptoms onset of their matched case subject”
Children who in fact were MMR vaccinated were purposely classified as non-MMR-vaccinated. Because you know, with such a tiny sample size creating category errors is what quality scientists do.
—–
Uno 2012.
This study did not find a “statistically significant” difference. It did find a that the MMR vaccinated group had a 1.04 increased OD for autism. When confounders were considered this associated increased to 1.1 OD.
Let’s thank this study because beyond a doubt it shows one of the many reasons why cherry picking 1 of 14 vaccines is a teachable rookie mistake.
In table 3 it shows that the mean number of vaccines for each group was 11.4.
Vaccines don’t cause autism because children with 11.4 vaccinations had similar rates of autism as children with 11.4 vaccinations.
There certainty is something undeniable here. Not sure what, but it’s something.
—
Smeeth 2004.
It uses a case control design similar to Mrozek-Budzyn 2010. Like the others it compares highly vaccinated children +MMR against highly vaccinated children -MMR
Like the Uno 2012 study it’s results were not statistically significant though the OR was .86 instead of positive.
—-
Look back at what you thought the medical community would classify as undeniable proof vaccines don’t cause autism.
You nailed the answer didn’t you? Didn’t you? Tell me you did.
“Nothing in this world is harder than speaking the truth, nothing easier than flattery.” ―- Fyodor Dostoevsky
“Real critical thinking means uncovering and questioning social, political and moral assumptions” —Disciplined minds, Jeff Schmidt
Chinese are even more MAGA than Americans. The large majority of Chinese support fighting the trade war with the US: 77% support keeping existing tariffs on the US and 74% want MORE tariffs on the US.
On the other hand, only 48% of Americans support using tariffs, making the US pubic the least supportive of using tariffs. Everyone else — e.g. Australia, Canada, France, Germany — just wants to fight back and retaliate and put more tariffs on America. (Japan is the only exception.)
Not sure what I think about St Clair these days. He’s shittified Counterpunch in some ways, like banning authors such as Rob Urie, and his politics are a mixed bag.
However, I regularly read his weekend column “Roaming Charges”, skipping the parts where my eyes glaze over. There’s some useful information to be gleaned, generally speaking.
Also, Eve Ottenberg is always worth a read.
I have little to say about the Ukrainian war, or the mendacity of the so called science around Covid. Lies and more damn lies.
Speaking of which, I’m loving one aspect of the Chaos Creator in Chief’s executive orders, namely cutting off aid to all the CIA propaganda networks. From Nicaragua to the Baltics there’s much nashing of teeth and rending of garments as conservative oppo journos get their meal tickets shredded.
I’m sorry about loss of livelihood, but if your income is supplied by American taxpayers so you can lie and carry out toxic agendas, maybe you should look at getting a cart and selling vegetables on the street or something. At least it’s honest and helpful.
Speaking of street vendos, I’m not so joyful about the Big DT’s crackdown on the immigrant community. In fact most of the crap executive orders he’s signed are designed to harm the vulnerable, and most are illegal and unconstitutional.
The wars and destruction, the bloodshed and chaos rages unabated (with a minor exception here and there). Doesn’t matter what I think or do, although I do believe there’s some merit in right conduct and view. But another time for that topic.
Much of what DT does is cracked. He is messing around with California’s federally controlled Central Valley Water project, supposedly sending water to Los Angeles, except Central Valley water doesn’t go much south of Bakersfield. Probably not a meaningful example to most of you. But, I feel like everything he’s reportedly doing is like that. Cracked. He is confused about how things work. And the media reporting on his policies, not to mention the clueless, hopelessly corrupt Democrats, are equally confused. Unconstitutional is almost incidental in this circus of fools and liars.
CIA financing of propaganda played an enormous role in the Ukraine war. Some simple math: $1 billion could buy 100,000 Ukrainian flunkies with university degrees in business, communications, etc at salaries of $10,000/year ( $850/month was a good salary in pre war Kyiv for a university graduate without valuable computer programming skills ). Assuming each flunky had on average one significant other (boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife) and one parent vested in the flunky’s career success, we now have 300,000 people “unable to understand because their job depends on their not understanding”. Kyiv had a pre war population of about 3 million. Of those, 1 million are too young or too old to have much influence and at most 1/3 of the remaining 2 million, or about 600,000, constituted the politically active group: people who keep up with and participate in politics, especially geopolitics. So for a mere rounding error in USA foreign affairs budget, which approaches $1 trillion/year, CIA could bribe 50% of pre war politically active class in Kyiv, where media and politics is concentrated, into supporting CIA aims. Add another billion to bribe bigger players (politicians, owners of media outlets) and you have $2 billion/year to completely corrupt the capital of Ukraine, and thus corrupt the rest of the nation as a natural consequence.
Once the war started, money for propaganda both inside and outside Ukraine was far more than $2 billion/year, obviously. Salaries are higher in USA, Canada, and Europe than Ukraine, but surely $100,000/year would be very enticing in those countries for a flunky type university graduate to spend their days making blog posts, twitter comments, YouTube videos etc in support of Ukraine. So another $1 billion/year for 10,000 flunkies outside Ukraine plus another $1 billion for bigger fish outside Ukraine, and pretty soon the media landscape is saturated with CIA propaganda, and yet the dollar amounts are still puny by comparison with total USA defense and foreign policy spending.
The LA Times published an op-ed — an op-ed headline at least — supportive of the nomination. Turns out the publisher intervened to edit the op-ed and headline to make a flat rejection of RFK into a back-handed endorsement. Erik Reinhart, the author of the original text of the op-ed, protested in the strongest terms.
Removed from the op-ed as written:
Although RFK Jr. and Luigi Mangione are both responses to the same underlying problem of US healthcare corruption, there is a major difference between them: one operated outside the law to kill one person in defense of millions, whereas the other––via his egomaniacal disregard for scientific evidence––seeks to use law itself to inflict preventable death on those millions.
A lot depends on whether Reinhart’s hyperbole reflects good, independent judgment and whether any alternative path to initiating reform is on offer.
I no longer trust assertions of expertise, especially by journalists.
I have not followed Oakchair down his rabbit hole du jour, but I have seen plenty of “studies” with crap design and crap statistics. When I have listened to RFK, Jr his remarks are generally defensible, making allowance for some rhetorical exaggeration. When I have read reporting on RFK’s views, he seems a bit nutty.
As far as the LA Times publisher is concerned, his other big recent crime against journalism was spiking an endorsement of Kamala Harris.
“Those who made Sanders impossible, made Trump inevitable”.
Was looking around on Bluesky and came across Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s account. It says she’s proud to serve Florida’s 25th dstrict in our nation’s capital and she asks us to text her at 954-866-9444. Just thought I’d share in case anyone wanted to express their gratitude for the current administration.
In response to Mago– yes, Counterpunch had a really terrible period when the Russian SMO started, and (counterintutively, I thought) they momentarily pivoted to the Lib/NatSec consensus, “Putin is a terrible dictator who did this for no reason whatsoever. . . ” What was very odd to me about that (beyond the deliberate ignorance, of course) was that Andrew Cockburn had done very good coverage of the 2013-14 Maidan coup run by Nuland just after it happened in Harper’s magazine. All the time I was reading Counterpunch (I guess going back to the 90s) it clearly seemed to an inter-generational production of 2 families, the Cockburns and the St. Clairs . . . don’t see Andrew C. on there much if at all anymore, which I think is odd. Did not know about Urie, but as best as I recall he was a good writer.
bruce w. brings up all the Ukraine lies. Military Summary Channel has long been a good source, Neutrality Studies outstanding and in-depth, variety of very knowledgeable sources: Ritter, Larry Johnson, Col. Wilkerson, Mohammed Mirandi, etc. etc. HIstory Legends drives in the same lane as Military Summary, solid.
Since the SMO began, the source I went to the most for relevant reporting is The Duran, an Anglo-Greek collaboration between Alexander Mercouris, and Alex Christoforou. Mercouris, the older of the 2, is indefatigable in research and has a great background in history (as well as being a retired barrister), and often appears with Glen Diesen (Norweigan academic) & John Mearsheimer in 3 way discussions. Mearsheimer treats Mercouris as a peer, which says a lot. They have predicted exactly how the war would go with over 95% accuracy by my metric since Feb. 2022. They rightly despised Biden, Blinken et al, which sometimes made them too optimistic about Trump however. In fact, once in a while they do the Left-Right Antiwar horseshoe thing in a way that pisses me off. The most egregious case I recall was when the Biden admin (not the old man himself, he wouldn’t care) got in a battle with the Mexcun-hating Texas Governor Greg Abbot (whose office probably has a sign in it saying “No Mexcuns, No Irish, No Dogs Allowed”) was putting razor wire across the Rio Grande & other border crossings to maim and kill those trying to cross from the South. But everybody has a bad take occasionally.
Oh yeah, a relatively new face, solid left, is the Greek-Canadian Dmitri Lascaris. Great guests, always thoughtful, and legitimate anti-war Left.
Jimmy Dore had a very bad take on Kyle Rottenmouse, e.g. A bit of “audience capture” by the Trumpies who watch him, evidently. Due Dissidence is friends with him, & often hosts when he’s out. They’re also very good (almost no reservations, except Russ’ occasional ravings about “Drag Queen story hour for kids”) on Ukraine & Palestine, mass incarceration, working class & unions, etc. They (& Dore) exposed me to my final share here, the brilliant Matt Orfalea of “Racket News.”
Here’s the spoiler– Wanna here “Ukraine Will Win!!” declared overconfidently by the State Media Borg at least 90 times in 5 minutes & ten seconds? This is a great cut. (Tallifer would have multiple orgasms, I think.)
Also recommended by Matt– “Kyle Kulinski demolishes Kyle Kulinski” if you like the format.
In closing, who is more propagandized? Americans or North Koreans? I’d have to study N.K. more to know, but I suspect it might be one area in which ‘Muricans are truly, as our Ruling Class endlessly reminds us, “Exceptional”!!
Bruce Wilder, RFK, Jr. is very good at what he his good at, which is suing corporations and govt. agencies. For that reason, he is hated in some quarters. I am convinced that his presence in the courtrooms, as representative of an elite, famous family, and his blogging about the trials, were important in helping the lead attorneys win the first three Monsanto trials.
I believe the FDA nomination, and I strongly suspect but cannot prove that the admin does not expect him to survive confirmation hearings, was by way of being a sop to his voters, those of us who do care about clean food, water, soil and air. Notice he is not being allowed anywhere near farm policy. Also notice how under wraps any mention of agriculture and the Secretary designate is being kept. Do we even know when her confirmation hearings were or will be?
One of Shahid Bolsen’s big insights is that Trump is selling the dismantling of Empire to his electoral coalition, composed in large part of people who would normally react very badly, in knee-jerk fashion and out of misplaced patriotic pride, to the necessary moves.
It is an insight that David Graeber expressed and others, too.
I think that is fine as far as it goes. MAGA is an American version of Little England. Just as English liberals could deceive themselves into thinking the world thankful for the blessings of English good government and equitable law and even a lingua franca of dubious suitability, overlooking a legacy of festering divisions and strife and famines, so, too, America.
MAGA will not be much disturbed as that purpose seeps out of the collective unconscious and into shared awareness.
Where I think it becomes far riskier is when the Tech Bros, emotionally immature, impossibly greedy and inherently unaware that they are not the good guys, begin to sus out that their own Private Empire is losing its foundation of sand.
I look in from time-to-time, but I find the format discouraging, the information density low at 1.0 speed. Mercouris uses way too many words, but he has a fine analytic mind and some insight into British and Greek political elite group-think. He is really good at reading between the lines official statements and “authoritative” journalism.
Mercouris was disbarred. He didn’t “retire.” No doubt the tragedy of his life, but it is worth noting how marginalized someone has to be to, in many cases, to form and express views against the grain of Establishment “consensus”. Applies to Scott Ritter and many others. I really admire Jeffrey Sachs for embracing views publicly long held privately in what is, effectively, his retirement from great prominence.
The other thing I would note about the Russophile Two Alex’es is that Greek Russophilia comes with surprising prejudices. Look at what they have to say about Tsarist government before WWI.
I do think that their “theory” of Russian military operations has not fully anticipated the weakness of the forces initially deployed or the slow pace and grinding destruction along the line of contact we have seen. Mercouris readily admits his limitations as a military analyst but does so at unconscionable length.
@ Mary Bennet
also my hypothesis about RFK,Jr
We will see. I despise his libertarian economic views, but maybe that makes him seem billionaire safe in a useful way.
To Bruce W– Yes to Mercouris’ “fine analytic mind,” it goes with his name. And yes, they are partly pro-Russian (& open about it) due to the Greek Orthodox & Russian Orthodox cultural connections. A little alien to me as a good, healthy pagan– but hey, at least it’s not Opus Dei like the US Supreme Court, or gibber-gabber Pentecostalist schizophrenia.
I agree about Alexander’s “disgrace”, have to put it in quotes because his big sin was evidently putting his client’s name on completed legal documents rather than waiting for her to do it . . . many have dismissed it. I think the issue of Ritter’s disgrace & jail sentence (an unhealthy fixation on teenage girls under legal age, and he was stupid enough to engage it 2x, the 2nd time he went to jail!) is more serious. His ex-Marine super-patriotism is also unsettling at times, but he has enough true humanity and integrity to realize that the US Empire is now “the Baddies” (has been, since April 1945, he’s a bit late to the party) and has the courage to act on that as well. And yes, the Duran made some mistakes early on (as many others did), I will admit my rank of 95% accuracy may have put the first few months in a memory-hole.
To Mary Bennett– The Due Dissidence coverage of RFK Jr’s hearing was good, & when he got yells & cheers while exiting, they predicted his confirmation. We’ll see. He is a sick and disgusting person on many levels, obviously getting addicted to heroin when he was like 15 contributed (& perhaps given his dad’s fate one can in no way blame him), even Shrub Jr. just poisoned his brain at that age until 40 with massive amounts of coke and booze. His ultra-Zionist insane beliefs (Palestinians have a world-wide Contract on ALL Jews with their billion$ of $ from . . . ? having their lands stolen & being occupied for 70+ years), palling around with Rabbi Shmuely. There is the rape, repeated as well of nannies and other subordinates. On the other hand he is “the poisoned chalice” that is right on some issues, so if he stays in his lane I certainly support him. Like Tulsi Gabbard, hatefully abused by chicken-hawk senators, who demanded she denounce Snowden as a “traitor”, it is interesting how the professional Lib class will viciously attack anyone who stands on the side of ordinary people sometimes. It’s an objective lesson for those of us watching.
Hello Mark Level. Yes, I subscribed to Counterpunch when it was a soft copy mag back in the day and Cockburn ruled the roost while Jeffrey played the dutiful acolyte.
They were a great duo. Don’t know when it all shifted.
Doesn’t matter.
Sheesh. Lost in the deluge . . .
But the music lives on. . .
I love rock and roll/put another dime in the jukebox baby . . .
I don’t agree with everything Trump is doing, but there is some method to his supposed madness.
The choice that Trump is imposing upon Canada, Mexico, Panama, etc. is this: you are with $US or against $US. What is he is doing is basically consolidating the $US bloc by gathering up resources and/or favorable terms for them in anticipation of a big reset, the reset being a true multi-polar world where the US won’t be able to bully the dollar on the entirety of the world, like the US does in so many ways now. He’s trying to subjugate them … commit them to US interests … by threatening to destroy them economically unless they agree to favorable trade agreements with the US.
The reason for this is that Trump is wisely conceding that there’s going to be a competing BRICS currency rather than trying to fight it through direct, indirect, and dirty wars. And the more resources the U.S. owns or has favorable access to will play a factor on the exchange rates because those assets will play an important part on the de facto backing of the $US. This is potentially a much saner and safer way of supporting the $US than playing bully to the world … and potentially creating uncontrollable chaos … in order to impose the supremacy of the $US, which would almost certainly eventually lead to calamitous consequences to the US and potentially the entire world.
Also, a lot of what is happening now with the USAID shutdown, the cutting off of aid to Ukraine, and other steps towards retrenching US soft and hard power more towards US borders, which might very well eventually include the US pulling out of NATO, goes back to the Syrian situation* IMO. Some sort of deal was made back then between Trump and Russia and other involved countries such as Israel, Iran, and Turkey … there had to have been because there’s no way that that change of power in Syria could have went off so friction-less on the fly in that agitated hornet’s nest which had so many armed entities … and now Trump is beginning to deliver on the steps he promised Putin in order to bring the Ukraine war to a close and other instabilities that the production team of Weekend at Biden’s was stirring up in Putin’s neighborhood. This will hopefully end dangerous … and I would add, unnecessary … hostilities between the two countries.
We are going to get a much more multi-polar world … there very well may have to be a lot of debt forgiveness in order to maintain cohesive world trade relations with this reset … and Trump, IMO, is wisely getting out ahead of it.
*And if you want to go even further back than the abrupt Syrian change of power, there is Hezbollah’s surrender, which immediately preceded it. Hezbollah’s leadership was probably ratted out by someone up high in Iran, I’d imagine, and many layers of it eliminated. To go even further back, the gears on the ratting out of Hezbollah’s leadership probably began with some treacherous deeds that led to the helicopter crash that killed a bunch of senior Iranian political officials who presumably had very tight ties with Hezbollah.
no, that’s not true at all, because he has no real demands. Everyone knows the stuff about Fentanyl is just an excuse. He can’t add tariffs under his own authority unless he says its a national emergency and that it’s a mater of national security.
It’s also wrong, because other than not spending as much on the military as he’d like Canada has given the US everything it asked for for a couple generations now, to our great detriment, I’d add.
We’ll see how it all turns out. I agree that the Fentanyl is just an excuse for the tariffs, but, as I’d imagine that you would admit: we don’t know everything that is going on behind the scenes. The way I look at it is that if all that it took to end the tariffs would be some actions to tighten up their borders, then why won’t Canada just do it? Mexico did and Trump said he’ll delay the tariffs on Mexico, though, again, we don’t know what else might be going on behind the scenes on that.
Also, some of the outrageous things he’s talked about … such as making Canada the 51st state … reek to me as being some sort of negotiating ploy to get them to the table to get favorable access/prices to Canada’s resources. Favorable access to Canada’s resources might also come in the form of US companies buying and gaining more control of those resources. Note that he’s also openly talked of taking over Greenland, presumably for its resources.
Basically what he wants, it seems to me, is more leverage on the Canadian economy and its resources, whether that be through the strengthening of the $US in respect to the Canadian dollar, or otherwise.
bruce wilder
I keep coming back to the War in Ukraine, always confused by the paucity of reliable information and independent judgment, as the info war for control of the narrative almost seems to loom larger than the fighting and dying in the steppe.
In a superficial way, I glean the pro-Ukraine side these days primarily from the social media influencer, Preston Stewart, who has become practically an official Pentagon flack, and from the online news headlines from the German pseudo-legacy-media outlet, Business Insider. I am getting my daily dose of pro-Russian takes primarily on X-twitter from Military Summary channel, Geroman, and the like, with some flavor from NC blog.
It is a curious business, this daily onslaught of video clips and takes. I do not know what to make of much of it. The North Koreans have come and gone from Kursk allegedly, a mere meme speck in the torrent of narrative; what purpose did that story serve?
The absence of official casualty figures for meat licenses seemingly limitless speculation. Russian use of improvised infantry vehicles prompts speculation that the Russians are running out of suitable armor. Videos of fireballs supports the idea that Ukraine is successfully using long-range drones against Russian gas and oil infrastructure. Ukraine has cut off Slovakia and Hungary and Moldova including Transnistria from Russian supply by other means. Still, the Russians inch forward more-or-less steadily on the ground across a broad front, enveloping villages and breaching an endless series of defensive fortifications.
Back at the war for the control of the narrative front, I have noticed that the elevation of Trump has occasioned Tucker Carlson getting more mileage from labeling Zelensky, “a dictator”. The new regime in Washington is undermining the institutional foundations for the Russiagate hoax, but getting remarkable pushback. Every once in a while, I glance at the Wikipedia entries for Russiagate and what Wikipedia diplomatically terms “the counternarrative” to see if there are any signs of crumbling. (Wikipedia is solidly supportive of the Democratic version of Russiagate on every point, but I figure that will change at some point and when it changes, that will indicate something about the zeitgeist.)
Mark Level
Reading Jeff St. Clair’s “Roaming Charges” at Counterpunch this morning, a couple of interesting items which could be filed under “They’re Just Not That Into Her”– which is the title of the Trump v. Harris piece–
On YouTube before the election, Kamala got 6.8 million views, Trump 113.6 million. This reaffirms Guy DeBord’s Society of the Spectacle, written way back in the 60s. Something will generally beat nothing.
Also, Greenlanders were polled on joining the US or sticking with Denmark– only 6% are stupid enough to want to be swallowed like a mint by the US, 85% favor sticking with their Euro-Overlord.
Oh, and he has a link to Mike Davis’ “Last Interview” with The (feh!) Guardian. Sorry to hear Mike is going, I read his classic City of Quartz around the 1990s, generally ranked among the best books about L.A. He chose not to treat his advancing cancer and go out his own way. He certainly saw how L.A. would turn from a Utopia into a Dystopia long before others. Link to the St. Clair piece is at https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/01/31/roaming-charges-the-trick-of-disaster/
Gotta appreciate the hat tip to Neil Young too (before he became a senile ShitLib). Like the ancient Greeks warned– Never judge a man’s (or for that matter a woman’s) life until it’s over.
Oakchair
In the HHS confirmation hearing for RFK Jr., Dr and senator Bill Cassidy provided a meta-analysis as undeniable proof that vaccines do not cause autism.
What would you consider to be undeniable proof? Write it down and fall down the rabbit hole with me.
Here is the meta-analysis
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24814559/
You can use this link to get past any paywalls to view every study discussed in its entirety.
https://sci-hub.se/
In the Eligibility criteria section 2.2 it states:
“Studies were included that looked at either MMR vaccination”
That would be 1 out of 14 vaccines currently on the CDC childhood schedule, or 6 out of 74 doses.
The MMR vaccine is first given at 1 year of age. By age 1 children have already received 25 doses.
There were no studies on the 25 vaccine doses before the MMR dose, no studies on the total number of vaccines given, no studies on unvaccinated verse vaccinated children.
There are simply 6 studies looking at highly vaccinated children with the MMR vaccine compared to highly vaccinated children without the MMR vaccination.
Looking at each study:
—
Madsen 2002.
This study was funded by multiple organizations who either own vaccine patents, or make billions of dollars selling vaccines (In the notes section at the end of the study). The authors worked for these organizations.
“children were assigned to the nonvaccinated group until they received the MMR vaccine.”
When a study openly admits they falsely classified the groups, imagine what they did that they won’t tell you.
To make it clear the effects of false classification here’s an example:
Every year 1% of the population develops disease X.
In a 5 year study half the population is given chemical Y 2 years into the study.
The Y group ends with a disease rate of 5.5%
The control group ends with a rate of 5%
However, if you falsely classify the groups –as the above study does– you can find that chemical Y not only doesn’t increase disease X it lowers it.
Even with this false classification, table 1 shows that the MMR vaccinated group had 17% more cases of autism.
The study still manages to find a way to claim the vaccine isn’t associated with autism by using “person-years” instead of autism cases.
“Person-years” adds or subtracts rates depending on when the diagnosis was made. Autism diagnosed at 4 years counts as a lower rate of autism than a case diagnosed at 2 years.
Why would the conflict of interest funded study do this? Might have something to do with one of the authors, Poul Thorsen being on the FBI’s most wanted list for over 20 counts of fraud and stealing a million dollars from the CDC.
—
Uchiyama 2007.
In Japan from 1988 to 1992 the MMR vaccination rate decreased from 70% to 2% because there were reports that the MMR vaccine was causing meningitis.
Japan then introduced a new MMR vaccine and by the mid 90’s vaccination rates surpassed all previous levels.
Obviously we could look at autism rates from the low vaccination years and compare them to the higher years and hopefully glean some useful information.
For what can only be a honest scientific reason that I am too uneducated to grasp the study decided not to do this. Instead it chose to mix the low and high vaccination groups together and compare them with another mixed group.
Sadly they do not provide yearly data so we cannot look at it ourselves.
Have no fear though, here is the data kindly provided. Go ahead and look at table 1 and figure 1 and help me comprehend why they decided not to compare high vaccination years with low ones.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15877763/
—
Destefano 2004.
This study was done by the CDC which owns dozens of vaccine patents and makes billions selling vaccines.
They found:
“Similar proportions of case and control children had been {MMR}vaccinated before 18 or before 24 months”
They also found:
Children who received the MMR vaccine before age 3 had a 1.49 increased rate of autism.
“Using a 36-month cutoff, more case {diagnosed with autism} children than control children were vaccinated before 36 months of age (OR: 1.49; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.04–2.14)”
One of the authors, William W. Thompson later became a whistleblower revealing that while he and the authors in this study were at the CDC they committed fraud and destroyed evidence showing vaccines cause autism.
Did I just hear a jaw slamming into the floor or was that the dog demanding lunch?
—
Mrozek-Budzyn 2010.
“there were 9 children not vaccinated”
Got that? In this study of 288 children there was 9 who did not receive the vaccination in question.
“Cases of autism were considered as vaccinated if vaccination preceded the onset of symptoms.”
“Controls were considered vaccinated if they received their vaccination before age of symptoms onset of their matched case subject”
Children who in fact were MMR vaccinated were purposely classified as non-MMR-vaccinated. Because you know, with such a tiny sample size creating category errors is what quality scientists do.
—–
Uno 2012.
This study did not find a “statistically significant” difference. It did find a that the MMR vaccinated group had a 1.04 increased OD for autism. When confounders were considered this associated increased to 1.1 OD.
Let’s thank this study because beyond a doubt it shows one of the many reasons why cherry picking 1 of 14 vaccines is a teachable rookie mistake.
In table 3 it shows that the mean number of vaccines for each group was 11.4.
Vaccines don’t cause autism because children with 11.4 vaccinations had similar rates of autism as children with 11.4 vaccinations.
There certainty is something undeniable here. Not sure what, but it’s something.
—
Smeeth 2004.
It uses a case control design similar to Mrozek-Budzyn 2010. Like the others it compares highly vaccinated children +MMR against highly vaccinated children -MMR
Like the Uno 2012 study it’s results were not statistically significant though the OR was .86 instead of positive.
—-
Look back at what you thought the medical community would classify as undeniable proof vaccines don’t cause autism.
You nailed the answer didn’t you? Didn’t you? Tell me you did.
“Nothing in this world is harder than speaking the truth, nothing easier than flattery.” ―- Fyodor Dostoevsky
“Real critical thinking means uncovering and questioning social, political and moral assumptions” —Disciplined minds, Jeff Schmidt
KT Chong
Chinese are even more MAGA than Americans. The large majority of Chinese support fighting the trade war with the US: 77% support keeping existing tariffs on the US and 74% want MORE tariffs on the US.
https://pro.morningconsult.com/analysis/2025-china-business-risks-us-companies
On the other hand, only 48% of Americans support using tariffs, making the US pubic the least supportive of using tariffs. Everyone else — e.g. Australia, Canada, France, Germany — just wants to fight back and retaliate and put more tariffs on America. (Japan is the only exception.)
https://pro.morningconsult.com/analysis/counter-consensus-trade-war-chinese-retaliation-wobbly-axis-of-evil
Is there any particular reason for why “everyone else” has not come together to gang up on the US on tariffs??
mago
Not sure what I think about St Clair these days. He’s shittified Counterpunch in some ways, like banning authors such as Rob Urie, and his politics are a mixed bag.
However, I regularly read his weekend column “Roaming Charges”, skipping the parts where my eyes glaze over. There’s some useful information to be gleaned, generally speaking.
Also, Eve Ottenberg is always worth a read.
I have little to say about the Ukrainian war, or the mendacity of the so called science around Covid. Lies and more damn lies.
Speaking of which, I’m loving one aspect of the Chaos Creator in Chief’s executive orders, namely cutting off aid to all the CIA propaganda networks. From Nicaragua to the Baltics there’s much nashing of teeth and rending of garments as conservative oppo journos get their meal tickets shredded.
I’m sorry about loss of livelihood, but if your income is supplied by American taxpayers so you can lie and carry out toxic agendas, maybe you should look at getting a cart and selling vegetables on the street or something. At least it’s honest and helpful.
Speaking of street vendos, I’m not so joyful about the Big DT’s crackdown on the immigrant community. In fact most of the crap executive orders he’s signed are designed to harm the vulnerable, and most are illegal and unconstitutional.
The wars and destruction, the bloodshed and chaos rages unabated (with a minor exception here and there). Doesn’t matter what I think or do, although I do believe there’s some merit in right conduct and view. But another time for that topic.
bruce wilder
Much of what DT does is cracked. He is messing around with California’s federally controlled Central Valley Water project, supposedly sending water to Los Angeles, except Central Valley water doesn’t go much south of Bakersfield. Probably not a meaningful example to most of you. But, I feel like everything he’s reportedly doing is like that. Cracked. He is confused about how things work. And the media reporting on his policies, not to mention the clueless, hopelessly corrupt Democrats, are equally confused. Unconstitutional is almost incidental in this circus of fools and liars.
Revelo
CIA financing of propaganda played an enormous role in the Ukraine war. Some simple math: $1 billion could buy 100,000 Ukrainian flunkies with university degrees in business, communications, etc at salaries of $10,000/year ( $850/month was a good salary in pre war Kyiv for a university graduate without valuable computer programming skills ). Assuming each flunky had on average one significant other (boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife) and one parent vested in the flunky’s career success, we now have 300,000 people “unable to understand because their job depends on their not understanding”. Kyiv had a pre war population of about 3 million. Of those, 1 million are too young or too old to have much influence and at most 1/3 of the remaining 2 million, or about 600,000, constituted the politically active group: people who keep up with and participate in politics, especially geopolitics. So for a mere rounding error in USA foreign affairs budget, which approaches $1 trillion/year, CIA could bribe 50% of pre war politically active class in Kyiv, where media and politics is concentrated, into supporting CIA aims. Add another billion to bribe bigger players (politicians, owners of media outlets) and you have $2 billion/year to completely corrupt the capital of Ukraine, and thus corrupt the rest of the nation as a natural consequence.
Once the war started, money for propaganda both inside and outside Ukraine was far more than $2 billion/year, obviously. Salaries are higher in USA, Canada, and Europe than Ukraine, but surely $100,000/year would be very enticing in those countries for a flunky type university graduate to spend their days making blog posts, twitter comments, YouTube videos etc in support of Ukraine. So another $1 billion/year for 10,000 flunkies outside Ukraine plus another $1 billion for bigger fish outside Ukraine, and pretty soon the media landscape is saturated with CIA propaganda, and yet the dollar amounts are still puny by comparison with total USA defense and foreign policy spending.
bruce wilder
Re: RFK,Jr and “science”
The LA Times published an op-ed — an op-ed headline at least — supportive of the nomination. Turns out the publisher intervened to edit the op-ed and headline to make a flat rejection of RFK into a back-handed endorsement. Erik Reinhart, the author of the original text of the op-ed, protested in the strongest terms.
Removed from the op-ed as written:
A lot depends on whether Reinhart’s hyperbole reflects good, independent judgment and whether any alternative path to initiating reform is on offer.
I no longer trust assertions of expertise, especially by journalists.
I have not followed Oakchair down his rabbit hole du jour, but I have seen plenty of “studies” with crap design and crap statistics. When I have listened to RFK, Jr his remarks are generally defensible, making allowance for some rhetorical exaggeration. When I have read reporting on RFK’s views, he seems a bit nutty.
As far as the LA Times publisher is concerned, his other big recent crime against journalism was spiking an endorsement of Kamala Harris.
Roy Batty
“Those who made Sanders impossible, made Trump inevitable”.
Was looking around on Bluesky and came across Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s account. It says she’s proud to serve Florida’s 25th dstrict in our nation’s capital and she asks us to text her at 954-866-9444. Just thought I’d share in case anyone wanted to express their gratitude for the current administration.
KT Chong
Just discovered Shahid Bolsen, who’s recently gained attention for his astute, controversial analysis of America and geopolitics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE7UwSc_Z6s
He is Muslim and talks about Islam, (which I does not like,) but very rarely; it’s his geopolitical breakdowns that are the real gems.
KT Chong
*which I do not like.
Mark Level
In response to Mago– yes, Counterpunch had a really terrible period when the Russian SMO started, and (counterintutively, I thought) they momentarily pivoted to the Lib/NatSec consensus, “Putin is a terrible dictator who did this for no reason whatsoever. . . ” What was very odd to me about that (beyond the deliberate ignorance, of course) was that Andrew Cockburn had done very good coverage of the 2013-14 Maidan coup run by Nuland just after it happened in Harper’s magazine. All the time I was reading Counterpunch (I guess going back to the 90s) it clearly seemed to an inter-generational production of 2 families, the Cockburns and the St. Clairs . . . don’t see Andrew C. on there much if at all anymore, which I think is odd. Did not know about Urie, but as best as I recall he was a good writer.
bruce w. brings up all the Ukraine lies. Military Summary Channel has long been a good source, Neutrality Studies outstanding and in-depth, variety of very knowledgeable sources: Ritter, Larry Johnson, Col. Wilkerson, Mohammed Mirandi, etc. etc. HIstory Legends drives in the same lane as Military Summary, solid.
Since the SMO began, the source I went to the most for relevant reporting is The Duran, an Anglo-Greek collaboration between Alexander Mercouris, and Alex Christoforou. Mercouris, the older of the 2, is indefatigable in research and has a great background in history (as well as being a retired barrister), and often appears with Glen Diesen (Norweigan academic) & John Mearsheimer in 3 way discussions. Mearsheimer treats Mercouris as a peer, which says a lot. They have predicted exactly how the war would go with over 95% accuracy by my metric since Feb. 2022. They rightly despised Biden, Blinken et al, which sometimes made them too optimistic about Trump however. In fact, once in a while they do the Left-Right Antiwar horseshoe thing in a way that pisses me off. The most egregious case I recall was when the Biden admin (not the old man himself, he wouldn’t care) got in a battle with the Mexcun-hating Texas Governor Greg Abbot (whose office probably has a sign in it saying “No Mexcuns, No Irish, No Dogs Allowed”) was putting razor wire across the Rio Grande & other border crossings to maim and kill those trying to cross from the South. But everybody has a bad take occasionally.
Oh yeah, a relatively new face, solid left, is the Greek-Canadian Dmitri Lascaris. Great guests, always thoughtful, and legitimate anti-war Left.
Jimmy Dore had a very bad take on Kyle Rottenmouse, e.g. A bit of “audience capture” by the Trumpies who watch him, evidently. Due Dissidence is friends with him, & often hosts when he’s out. They’re also very good (almost no reservations, except Russ’ occasional ravings about “Drag Queen story hour for kids”) on Ukraine & Palestine, mass incarceration, working class & unions, etc. They (& Dore) exposed me to my final share here, the brilliant Matt Orfalea of “Racket News.”
Here’s the spoiler– Wanna here “Ukraine Will Win!!” declared overconfidently by the State Media Borg at least 90 times in 5 minutes & ten seconds? This is a great cut. (Tallifer would have multiple orgasms, I think.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3F3owL3iQo
Also recommended by Matt– “Kyle Kulinski demolishes Kyle Kulinski” if you like the format.
In closing, who is more propagandized? Americans or North Koreans? I’d have to study N.K. more to know, but I suspect it might be one area in which ‘Muricans are truly, as our Ruling Class endlessly reminds us, “Exceptional”!!
Mary Bennet
Bruce Wilder, RFK, Jr. is very good at what he his good at, which is suing corporations and govt. agencies. For that reason, he is hated in some quarters. I am convinced that his presence in the courtrooms, as representative of an elite, famous family, and his blogging about the trials, were important in helping the lead attorneys win the first three Monsanto trials.
I believe the FDA nomination, and I strongly suspect but cannot prove that the admin does not expect him to survive confirmation hearings, was by way of being a sop to his voters, those of us who do care about clean food, water, soil and air. Notice he is not being allowed anywhere near farm policy. Also notice how under wraps any mention of agriculture and the Secretary designate is being kept. Do we even know when her confirmation hearings were or will be?
bruce wilder
One of Shahid Bolsen’s big insights is that Trump is selling the dismantling of Empire to his electoral coalition, composed in large part of people who would normally react very badly, in knee-jerk fashion and out of misplaced patriotic pride, to the necessary moves.
It is an insight that David Graeber expressed and others, too.
I think that is fine as far as it goes. MAGA is an American version of Little England. Just as English liberals could deceive themselves into thinking the world thankful for the blessings of English good government and equitable law and even a lingua franca of dubious suitability, overlooking a legacy of festering divisions and strife and famines, so, too, America.
MAGA will not be much disturbed as that purpose seeps out of the collective unconscious and into shared awareness.
Where I think it becomes far riskier is when the Tech Bros, emotionally immature, impossibly greedy and inherently unaware that they are not the good guys, begin to sus out that their own Private Empire is losing its foundation of sand.
bruce wilder
Re: The Duran
I look in from time-to-time, but I find the format discouraging, the information density low at 1.0 speed. Mercouris uses way too many words, but he has a fine analytic mind and some insight into British and Greek political elite group-think. He is really good at reading between the lines official statements and “authoritative” journalism.
Mercouris was disbarred. He didn’t “retire.” No doubt the tragedy of his life, but it is worth noting how marginalized someone has to be to, in many cases, to form and express views against the grain of Establishment “consensus”. Applies to Scott Ritter and many others. I really admire Jeffrey Sachs for embracing views publicly long held privately in what is, effectively, his retirement from great prominence.
The other thing I would note about the Russophile Two Alex’es is that Greek Russophilia comes with surprising prejudices. Look at what they have to say about Tsarist government before WWI.
I do think that their “theory” of Russian military operations has not fully anticipated the weakness of the forces initially deployed or the slow pace and grinding destruction along the line of contact we have seen. Mercouris readily admits his limitations as a military analyst but does so at unconscionable length.
@ Mary Bennet
also my hypothesis about RFK,Jr
We will see. I despise his libertarian economic views, but maybe that makes him seem billionaire safe in a useful way.
Mark Level
To Bruce W– Yes to Mercouris’ “fine analytic mind,” it goes with his name. And yes, they are partly pro-Russian (& open about it) due to the Greek Orthodox & Russian Orthodox cultural connections. A little alien to me as a good, healthy pagan– but hey, at least it’s not Opus Dei like the US Supreme Court, or gibber-gabber Pentecostalist schizophrenia.
I agree about Alexander’s “disgrace”, have to put it in quotes because his big sin was evidently putting his client’s name on completed legal documents rather than waiting for her to do it . . . many have dismissed it. I think the issue of Ritter’s disgrace & jail sentence (an unhealthy fixation on teenage girls under legal age, and he was stupid enough to engage it 2x, the 2nd time he went to jail!) is more serious. His ex-Marine super-patriotism is also unsettling at times, but he has enough true humanity and integrity to realize that the US Empire is now “the Baddies” (has been, since April 1945, he’s a bit late to the party) and has the courage to act on that as well. And yes, the Duran made some mistakes early on (as many others did), I will admit my rank of 95% accuracy may have put the first few months in a memory-hole.
To Mary Bennett– The Due Dissidence coverage of RFK Jr’s hearing was good, & when he got yells & cheers while exiting, they predicted his confirmation. We’ll see. He is a sick and disgusting person on many levels, obviously getting addicted to heroin when he was like 15 contributed (& perhaps given his dad’s fate one can in no way blame him), even Shrub Jr. just poisoned his brain at that age until 40 with massive amounts of coke and booze. His ultra-Zionist insane beliefs (Palestinians have a world-wide Contract on ALL Jews with their billion$ of $ from . . . ? having their lands stolen & being occupied for 70+ years), palling around with Rabbi Shmuely. There is the rape, repeated as well of nannies and other subordinates. On the other hand he is “the poisoned chalice” that is right on some issues, so if he stays in his lane I certainly support him. Like Tulsi Gabbard, hatefully abused by chicken-hawk senators, who demanded she denounce Snowden as a “traitor”, it is interesting how the professional Lib class will viciously attack anyone who stands on the side of ordinary people sometimes. It’s an objective lesson for those of us watching.
mago
Hello Mark Level. Yes, I subscribed to Counterpunch when it was a soft copy mag back in the day and Cockburn ruled the roost while Jeffrey played the dutiful acolyte.
They were a great duo. Don’t know when it all shifted.
Doesn’t matter.
Sheesh. Lost in the deluge . . .
But the music lives on. . .
I love rock and roll/put another dime in the jukebox baby . . .
Z
I don’t agree with everything Trump is doing, but there is some method to his supposed madness.
The choice that Trump is imposing upon Canada, Mexico, Panama, etc. is this: you are with $US or against $US. What is he is doing is basically consolidating the $US bloc by gathering up resources and/or favorable terms for them in anticipation of a big reset, the reset being a true multi-polar world where the US won’t be able to bully the dollar on the entirety of the world, like the US does in so many ways now. He’s trying to subjugate them … commit them to US interests … by threatening to destroy them economically unless they agree to favorable trade agreements with the US.
The reason for this is that Trump is wisely conceding that there’s going to be a competing BRICS currency rather than trying to fight it through direct, indirect, and dirty wars. And the more resources the U.S. owns or has favorable access to will play a factor on the exchange rates because those assets will play an important part on the de facto backing of the $US. This is potentially a much saner and safer way of supporting the $US than playing bully to the world … and potentially creating uncontrollable chaos … in order to impose the supremacy of the $US, which would almost certainly eventually lead to calamitous consequences to the US and potentially the entire world.
Also, a lot of what is happening now with the USAID shutdown, the cutting off of aid to Ukraine, and other steps towards retrenching US soft and hard power more towards US borders, which might very well eventually include the US pulling out of NATO, goes back to the Syrian situation* IMO. Some sort of deal was made back then between Trump and Russia and other involved countries such as Israel, Iran, and Turkey … there had to have been because there’s no way that that change of power in Syria could have went off so friction-less on the fly in that agitated hornet’s nest which had so many armed entities … and now Trump is beginning to deliver on the steps he promised Putin in order to bring the Ukraine war to a close and other instabilities that the production team of Weekend at Biden’s was stirring up in Putin’s neighborhood. This will hopefully end dangerous … and I would add, unnecessary … hostilities between the two countries.
We are going to get a much more multi-polar world … there very well may have to be a lot of debt forgiveness in order to maintain cohesive world trade relations with this reset … and Trump, IMO, is wisely getting out ahead of it.
*And if you want to go even further back than the abrupt Syrian change of power, there is Hezbollah’s surrender, which immediately preceded it. Hezbollah’s leadership was probably ratted out by someone up high in Iran, I’d imagine, and many layers of it eliminated. To go even further back, the gears on the ratting out of Hezbollah’s leadership probably began with some treacherous deeds that led to the helicopter crash that killed a bunch of senior Iranian political officials who presumably had very tight ties with Hezbollah.
Z
Ian Welsh
Z,
no, that’s not true at all, because he has no real demands. Everyone knows the stuff about Fentanyl is just an excuse. He can’t add tariffs under his own authority unless he says its a national emergency and that it’s a mater of national security.
It’s also wrong, because other than not spending as much on the military as he’d like Canada has given the US everything it asked for for a couple generations now, to our great detriment, I’d add.
Z
Ian,
We’ll see how it all turns out. I agree that the Fentanyl is just an excuse for the tariffs, but, as I’d imagine that you would admit: we don’t know everything that is going on behind the scenes. The way I look at it is that if all that it took to end the tariffs would be some actions to tighten up their borders, then why won’t Canada just do it? Mexico did and Trump said he’ll delay the tariffs on Mexico, though, again, we don’t know what else might be going on behind the scenes on that.
Also, some of the outrageous things he’s talked about … such as making Canada the 51st state … reek to me as being some sort of negotiating ploy to get them to the table to get favorable access/prices to Canada’s resources. Favorable access to Canada’s resources might also come in the form of US companies buying and gaining more control of those resources. Note that he’s also openly talked of taking over Greenland, presumably for its resources.
Basically what he wants, it seems to me, is more leverage on the Canadian economy and its resources, whether that be through the strengthening of the $US in respect to the Canadian dollar, or otherwise.
Z
Z
Another form that building a $US bloc could take is cajoling Canada and Mexico to join the US in placing tariffs on China.
Z