We are now just over $7k raised, putting us about $1,000 from the second tier, of:
Three more articles, this set most likely on the conditions that create golden Ages, including one on how to create an ecological Golden Age (what we need next.)
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Feel free to use comments to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts.
Hugh
I was surprised by all the criticism of Biden’s choice of OMB Director Neera Tanden . She is really quite accomplished. Here are just some of her accomplishments I was able to pull off the web:
Was a big supporter of the odious Hillary Clinton in 2008 and 2016
Consistenty attacked progressives and Bernie Sanders
Backed the conspiracy theory that Clinton lost because Clinton votes were changed to Trump votes
Was in the Podesta emails because she is CEO of the Center for American Progress which Podesta founded
Is anti-labor. She shut down CAP’s publication Think Progress when it unionized
Is against a $15/hour minimum wage
Accepted millions from in United Arab Emirates funding for CAP
(Other than being a personal vehicle to promote Neera Tanden and the Democratic Party Establishment has CAP ever accomplished anything?)
Punched Think Progress’s editor after he asked Clinton about her support for the Iraq War in an interview
Outed an employee making a confidential sexual harrassment claim to her staff in a meeting at CAP
Has backed cutting Social Security
Opposes Medicare for All
Put together the vaporously vague “public option” which Obama used, before dropping, to shut down progressive opposition to the ACA during the Great Healthcare debate
Censored CAP employees critical of Israel
Wanted to invade Libya to seize its oil and sell it
Has no job, financial, or economic experience or background for OMB director
I mean seriously who could ask for more? She is the perfect neoliberal for a neoliberal Administration.
Stirling S Newberry
She is part of the “we can’t afford anything for anyone who can’t hide their money.”
KT Chong
Yanis Varoufakis: the 2020 US election result is the WORST POSSIBLE outcome:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9Oba-ns_B8
nihil obstet
My favorite headline in today’s newspaper: Venezuela’s Maduro seeks to tighten his grip via election (Associated Press)
Wow, what a horrible authoritarian dictator! He’s going to get more support by, wait for it, ELECTION. What evil will socialists use next?
And didn’t anybody in the production of a news wire story see the sheer jaw-dropping stupidity?
Hugh
Trump was the worst possible outcome. The Democrats as usual screwed up. The election being a referendum on Trump only worked for Biden, not down ticket. The Democrats didn’t run on anything positive, did no Get Out the Vote, ran a bunch of Blue Dog has-beens, kept their same out of touch leadership (Pelosi and Schumer), and didn’t beat the Republicans over the head for playing politics and refusing a real relief plan for ordinary Americans because A) Republicans don’t care about ordinary Americans and B) they hated the idea of doing anything that might make Democrats look good no matter how much it was needed. Now we see the other side of this where some Republicans are saying, after blocking action for 7 months, Hey, we only have a week to get something done before Congress adjourns. If hypocrisy was an opiate our political classes would have OD’ed and been in the ground long ago.
bruce wilder
The Democrats didn’t . . . beat the Republicans over the head for playing politics and refusing a real relief plan for ordinary Americans because A) Democrats like Republicans don’t care about ordinary Americans and B) Democrats hated the idea of doing anything that might make force them to do good no matter how much it was needed that failed to benefit their donors.
Fixed your argument there for you, Hugh. Wonder if you can spot the subtle replacement of your misirection by simple statements of truth?
Hugh
The Republicans walk away from a relief bill for seven months, and that’s the Democrats’ fault? You need to lay off the kool-aid.
Zachary Smith
A history lesson in hypocrisy. The execution of Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita after the end of WW2 made a mockery of “American Law”. It was not only unjust in every way, but has set a standard which the West has resolutely ignored since then.
Apologies for the crappy view at the link. Why the site-owner thinks white type on a black background is the way to go is beyond me. The Firefox browser has a “reader view” icon in the address bar which fixes everything. Those using other browsers might consider cut/pasting the text to a word processor page.
http://johnhelmer.net/the-rules-based-order-for-soldiers-who-kill-civilians-the-us-rule-for-japanese-the-australian-rule-for-afghans-the-dutch-rule-for-russians/
Zachary Smith
This brings back memories of the defunct (and good riddance!) IndyStar forum of a couple decades back. The nanny software in that one looked for any instances of ‘four letter words’. In my post was this:
🙂
Zachary Smith
“Laser Weapons On The Battlefield Of Tomorrow: Separating Fact From Fiction”
Others who read this article may well come to a different conclusion than mine, which is that current laser weapons are good for only one thing.
I translate that as destroying the sensors aboard enemy weapons and ships and planes. If you happen to be a pilot who has suddenly had his eyeballs fried, it’s fair to say that in his case the “dazzler” laser was quite lethal.
IMO any competent attacker who knows he will be going up against Laser Defensive Weapons will easily defeat them.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/37646/laser-weapons-separating-fact-from-fiction
Chuck Mire
The Architect Of Confrontational Party Politics – Newt “Family Values” Gingrich:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/11/newt-gingrich-says-youre-welcome/570832/
Ten Bears
This year’s annual report of The Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change, released today, presents the latest data on health impacts from a changing climate.
Among its results, the report found …
~ based on current population data, 145 million people face potential inundation with global mean sea-level rise of one metre. This jumps to 565 million people with a five metre sea-level rise.
~ there were 296,000 heat-related premature deaths in people over 65 years in 2018 (a 54% increase in the last two decades)
~ in 2019 excess drought affected over twice the global land surface area, compared with the 1950-2005 baseline
~ global yield potential for major crops declined by 1.8–5.6% between 1981 and 2019
~ the five hottest years on record have occurred since 2015, and 2020 is on track to be the first or second hottest year on record
~ climate change worsens risk factors for more frequent and intense bushfires – the report found that between 2015 and 2019, the number of people exposed to bushfires increased in 128 countries, compared with a 2001-2004 baseline
A clear and present danger to all of our grandchildrens’ futures.
Joan
I read somewhere else an anonymous college instructor posting that he/she had been told that none of the students are going to fail courses this semester. So even if the students haven’t submitted their work online or what have you, everyone will still not get an F. Has anyone here heard of such reports?
Hugh
Ten Bears, I remember reading an IPCC report maybe from 2007 which basically said the American Southwest was going to burn up, the Gulf of Mexico was going to be blasted to pieces by hurricanes, and ocean rise was going to take out most East Coast cities. In 2012, we saw what just one storm Sandy could do to New York City. In a lot of ways, the future is already here. We’re just not paying attention or doing much about it. Instead we’re talking about the antics of our soon to be ex-, nutso President or his built for failure successor. Meanwhile 2030 continues to be the sell by date for much of the planet.
Ten Bears
Pretty much everywhere south of Oregon, and much of that. I’ve a post up at my place a few day’s ago, You won’t stop the migration, with some maps reflecting where we’re likely to be in 2050. Canada really needs to take a close look at history.
Zachary Smith
The clickbait RT site used to be an interesting read. Not anymore. Headline there:
“Jewish group slams Georgia Democrat Senate candidates for campaigning with lawmaker who allegedly compared Jews to ‘TERMITES”
It’s easy enough to find the reportedly/allegedly part. A google search of Warnock and termites found a direct lie at the jpost site: “enjoys referring to Israelis as ‘termites”. The others on the first page of results were often in the “blowing a kiss” range of the truth – if a person has a lot of imagination.
https://www.ajc.com/blog/politics/georgia-gop-calls-for-hank-johnson-resign-after-likens-israel-settlement-policy-termites/U4LEUL8N8YxG1sqLUJP4NN/
Settlement Policy of the Apartheid state involves supporting the thieves and murderers and burning-alive types ravaging the stolen West Bank. It’s rather a pity Mr. Johnson didn’t make that more clear.
I don’t live in Georgia, but if I did, I’d vote for Warnock. The other race features a couple of worthless jerks, and I’d sit that one out. Electing a neoliberal Blue Dog Democrat to remove a scummy GOP knuckledragger wouldn’t be any kind of improvement at all in my opinion.